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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/georgewestinghouOOIeup 



GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

HIS LIFE AND ACHIEVEMENTS 




9i^ l;l/ ' r ^Atl9PS /-,, ty^a^ncS 



GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 



GEORGE 
WESTINGHOUSE 

His Life and Achievements 



BY 



FRANCIS E> LEUPP 



Illustrated from Photographs 



W on -refer ? 




cQWVAD-aas 



BOSTON 
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 

1918 



■W+L 



Copyright, iqi8, 

By Little, Brown, and Company 

All rights reserved 



SEP r S 13ft 



Norinnofi $ress 

Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Cushing Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 

Presswork by S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, Mass., U.S.A. 



™. f 50191 H 

if 



TO MY DEAR OLD FRIEND 

THE HONORABLE MARTIN A. KNAPP, 

WHO HAS LABORED FOR THE RAILWAYS 

ON THEIR ECONOMIC SIDE 

AS GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE DID FOR THEIR 

PHYSICAL STRENGTH AND SAFETY 



PREFACE 

Although George Westinghouse was, in the 
broadest sense, a public servant, my own acquaint- 
ance with him was only social. As he left behind 
him no diaries, no files of personal correspondence, 
and scarcely any other sources of supply on which 
the biographer of a political or military celebrity 
depends for much interesting material, I have been 
obliged to rely, in the main, on the memories of 
the friends of Mr. Westinghouse, local tradition and 
gossip in neighborhoods where he had lived, the 
records of courts and minutes of public meetings, 
corporate reports and partnership account books, 
old volumes of newspapers and magazines, mis- 
cellaneous scrapbooks, and the like. One day, let 
us hope, we may have from the pen of some well- 
known expert in technology an adequate summary 
of what the whole world's industrial advancement 
owes to the work of the eminent inventor. The 
mission of the present volume is simply human. It 
will have been accomplished if it conveys to the 
young man of today a sense that his career will 
depend for success less on the splendor of its start 
than on the spirit in which he pursues it ; far less 
on capital than on courage, on worry than on watch- 
fulness, on "pull" than on persistence. 



viii PREFACE 

Of the gentlemen to whom I am indebted for as- 
sistance in this task, I beg here to return thanks to 
Mr. Ernest H. Heinrichs, who for some years was 
attached to the personal staff in the Westinghouse 
office in Pittsburgh, and who passed over to me the 
copious notes he had made with a view to a possible 
biography of his chief ; to Mr. H. C. Tener, the last 
private secretary of Mr. Westinghouse ; to Mr. 
Alexander G. Uptegraff, who for a long period was 
a member of the family circle and represented 
Mrs. Westinghouse in many of her social and char- 
itable projects ; to Mr. George W. Jones, a relative 
who is still engaged in business at the old head- 
quarters of "G. Westinghouse & Co." in Schenec- 
tady, New York; to the authors of the excellent 
books and magazine articles from which I have 
drawn facts or inspiration ; and to a number of 
interesting men and women whom I have quoted 
in my narrative. In an effort to avoid errors, I 
have, as far as practicable, submitted doubtful 
passages to various persons whose criticism would 
be valuable, and in all cases where their opinions 
disagreed I have exercised my own discretion. I am 
making this statement as a matter of fairness to 
every one concerned. 

F. E. L. 
Washington, D. C, 
July i, 1918. 



CONTENTS 



Preface 

I "At First, the Infant" . 

II "The Age 'Twixt Boy and Youth" 

III Soldier and Sailor, Student and Swain 

IV Opportunity Knocks at the Door . 
V Doubt Changed to Certainty . 

VI "Nothing Succeeds Like Success" . 

VII The Battle of the Brakes 

VIII Opening a Mine of Gaseous Wealth 

IX What the Gas Did for Pittsburgh 

X The Contest of the Currents 

XI The Struggle in New York . 

XII Origin of the "Stopper" Lamp 

XIII From Niagara to the Navy 

XIV "Blushing Honors Thick upon Him" 
XV A Second Financial Ordeal 

XVI Air Springs and Addresses 

XVII A Big Man's Human Side . 

XVIII "The Old Man" and His Employees 

XIX A Trio of Homes .... 

XX Insignia of Character 

XXI "Last Scene of All" 
Index . . 



PAGE 

vii 
i 

13 
29 

47 
62 
76 

9i 
106 
119 
131 
143 
156 
171 
188 
204 
219 
232 
246 

259 
274 
290 
301 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

George Westinghou.se . . . Frontispiece in Photogravure \s'' 

The Mother and Father of George Westinghouse facing page 4 (/ 

Birthplace at Central Bridge, N. Y. . . . " " 10 

George Westinghouse. From a War-Time Portrait " 30 

George Westinghouse and Mrs. Westinghouse 

during their Earlier Days of Wedded Life " 46 u 

The First Westinghouse Air Brake Factory . " " 72 :.- 

Locomotive and Passenger Car That Constituted a 
Part of the First Train Used for a Public Ex- 
hibition of the Brake " " 76 

"Solitude," the Westinghouse Home at Pittsburgh " " 122 

Marguerite Erskine Westinghouse . . . " " 134 - 

George Westinghouse at Work , . . " " 180 - 

Erskine Manor, the Lenox Residence . . . " " 264 - 



GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

CHAPTER I 
"At First, the Infant" 

In the northeast corner of Schoharie County, New 
York, lies the village of Central Bridge. To most 
travelers on the railroad that skirts its border it is 
only a way station, to students of the map a dot ; 
but to it our country owes a debt, for out of it came 
one of those uncommon men whose achievements 
have shed luster upon the American name in all parts 
of the earth, and whose character is a precious herit- 
age to younger generations in search of an exemplar. 
He was not a military hero, though he tasted war; 
he was not a statesman, though counting Presidents 
and Kings among his friends ; he was master of no 
magic arts, yet his clever hands, responsive to a fertile 
mind, were always busy converting prophecy into 
history. He gloried in the fact that he was simply 
a man among men, with sturdy muscles and an active 
brain, whose so-called genius consisted of the broadest 
of human sympathies and the keenest sense of future 
possibilities harnessed to a tireless perseverance. 



2 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

Central Bridge, which is not yet a large community, 
was in the earlier half of the last century the heart of 
a back-country farming district. Its aboriginal pos- 
sessors were the Mohegan Indians, who opened sev- 
eral trails from the Hudson and Mohawk valleys into 
the Schoharie valley, and made some primitive ef- 
forts at agriculture. Its first permanent white settle- 
ment appears to have been by the German Palatine 
immigrants after their dispersion from the Livingston 
Manor. They arrived in a condition of great pov- 
erty, bearing all their worldly goods bound to their 
shoulders, and endured every kind of discouraging 
experience while they were making the wilderness 
habitable. There was something infectious in their 
stubborn refusal to be crushed by hardships. It 
spread to the new neighbors who gradually moved 
into the valley, which, though suffering not a little 
from raids in the war of the Revolution, gradually 
blossomed forth with fertile and well-tilled farms, 
and became dotted here and there with churches, 
schools, mills, and small factories, the latter run by 
the local water powers. It is because the resolute 
spirit of those early days had in it a quality of presage 
that I have drawn upon them for a background to 
the opening scenes of my story. 

There are now, strictly speaking, two villages of 
Central Bridge, five minutes' walk apart. The old 
Central Bridge of the histories lies in the opening of 
the V-shaped point made by the junction of Cobles- 
kill Creek with the Schoharie River, and is separated 
from its modern namesake by the Creek. The new 
village has grown up around the station since the 



"AT FIRST, THE INFANT" 3 

railroad was run through the valley. To the old 
village came, about 1836, one George Westinghouse, 
bred a farmer, self-trained a mechanic, with a special 
taste for carpentry. He represented the second 
generation of the name in this country. Born and 
reared near North Pownal, Vermont, he had been 
stirred by what he heard of the newly opened West, 
and removed soon after his marriage in 1831 to a 
farm on the banks of the Cuyahoga River in Ohio, 
not far from Cleveland. The climate, however, did 
not prove to his liking or to his wife's ; so after a 
rather short stay they returned to the East, settling 
first at Minaville, in Montgomery County, New 
York. It is believed to have been there that the 
bent was given to his mind which shaped his whole 
after career. 

One of his neighbors had acquired a threshing ma- 
chine, and this, being a novelty thereabout, interested 
Westinghouse, who soon fell to planning means for 
improving its efficiency. The subject haunted his 
thoughts continually, and his leisure moments were 
often employed with pencil and paper, sketching little 
designs for parts which he conceived could be re- 
modeled with advantage. His wife encouraged him 
in this new departure, and warmly approved his sug- 
gestion that he might change his occupation and 
become a maker of machinery. But Minaville, they 
both felt certain, was no place for a factory of the 
sort he contemplated : it was far from a base of sup- 
plies. He had heard of Central Bridge, with its two 
abundant water courses, its system of highways 
radiating in every direction, and its convenient dis- 



4 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

tance from the growing town of Schenectady. A 
visit of inspection satisfied him that it was the site 
he was looking for, and he lost no time in making the 
move. 

Too conservative a manager to give up farming 
till he was entirely assured of the success of his manu- 
facturing experiment, he bought a fair-sized tract of 
bottom land where the river and the creek meet. 
Here stood already a few buildings, one of which he 
expanded into a shop, where he could repair the ma- 
chinery of a brace of mills that were near by, and 
work out in wood some of the designs he had sketched. 

Before long it became plain that he must choose 
definitely between his two occupations and devote his 
attention exclusively to one, and, as a patent he had 
taken out had begun to bring returns, he made over 
most of his farm work to hired hands and spent his 
days at the bench. His mechanical operations grad- 
ually outgrew the original shop, and an extension had 
to be added. This, in its turn, meant more capital 
and more help, both of which were forthcoming from 
the neighborhood, where the people had come to 
recognize in him a man of more than ordinary ability. 
His inventions included improvements not only in 
threshing machines, but in winnowing appliances, 
endless-chain horse powers, and several allied de- 
vices, as well as a seed-scraper for broom corn which 
attracted notice by its ingenuity. 

Mrs. Westinghouse, born Emmeline Vedder, was 
of Dutch-English stock. She was a woman of strong 
common sense, with a considerable imaginative fac- 
ulty. Though she knew too little of the mechanic 





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"AT FIRST, THE INFANT" 5 

arts to enter into her husband's plans in detail, she 
had unbounded faith in him, and helped him where 
she could. By this time they had six children, 
three boys and three girls — healthy, active, noisy 
little folk, whom often it was hard to keep from get- 
ting under foot in their father's shop. 

One autumn evening Mr. Westinghouse came in 
looking unusually tired, but with a light in his eye 
which his wife interpreted as meaning that he had 
caught a glimmer of hope through a tangle of per- 
plexities which he had attempted to explain to her 
the day before. His thoughts were so immersed in 
the subject with which they had been struggling all 
day that he almost failed to recognize an elderly 
woman from the village who was stirring about in- 
doors, and whom he vaguely remembered to have 
seen there on one or two former occasions, lending a 
hand at the household work and looking after the 
children. The supper table was set, and his wife 
was in her chair at her accustomed end, but not eat- 
ing. She did not rise as he entered, nor did she offer 
to assist as the neighbor helped the hungry children 
into their places. 

The meal was eaten almost in silence. The hus- 
band was abstracted in manner, the children were 
repressed by the presence of an outsider, the wife was 
reticent as became her attitude toward these occa- 
sional moods of his, which she knew portended some 
development of consequence. When an opening 
came she inquired, half timidly : 

"Has it been a good day for you?" 

"It's too soon to speak positively," he answered, 



6 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

"but I'm pretty sure I've got that connection to 
work. There are two or three things I must figure 
out still." 

"You'll have those by to-morrow night," she said, 
in the hopeful tone he knew so well. "I'm glad 
you're near the end." 

"I shall have all the figuring done before I go to 
bed," he declared. "I've reached a point now where 
I couldn't sleep if I tried, and I shan't try." 

She made no attempt to argue with him as to the 
wisdom of his stealing some rest : she knew too well 
what this manner signified. As soon as supper was 
finished she took the children with her to the upper 
story, while the neighbor rapidly cleared the table, 
spread it with its colored cover, set the lamp on it, 
and withdrew. The man of the house went out to 
his shop, and presently came back bearing a handful 
of papers, chiefly rough pencil drawings and scraps 
covered with mathematical calculations. These he 
laid out in a certain order on the table, drew up a 
chair, and two minutes later was sketching and figur- 
ing, and otherwise dead to the world. His first re- 
lease from the spell was when the clock struck four. 
Then he looked up, stretched himself, and with a 
great sigh of relief blew out the light and lay down 
on the sofa with his eyes closed. He felt that he 
could afford to take a brief recess now, for he had 
brought the last of his calculations to the desired 
conclusion, and it would do him good to think them 
over at his ease, preparatory to laying hold of his 
tools with the coming of daylight and translating his 
theoretical results into a concrete piece of machinery. 



"AT FIRST, THE INFANT" 7 

It was after six o'clock when he reopened his eyes 
with a start and sat up. The sun was lazily playing 
on the leaves of a lilac bush that fringed the window. 
He looked about him, still too stupid with sleep to 
realize fully where he was or how he chanced to be 
there. The papers scattered over the table, however, 
recalled his night's work and reminded him that he 
must hasten now to the shop. The October morning 
had a tang of frost in it, and, as the kettle was on the 
back of the kitchen stove, he made a fire and had a 
cup of hot coffee to drink with the hasty breakfast 
for which he foraged while gathering up his litter 
from the dining room. He tried to tiptoe out of the 
house, but was arrested by his wife's voice at the head 
of the stairs, softly calling his name. 

"Yes?" he called back, somewhat startled. 
"What's the matter?" 

"Are you going out? You haven't been to bed." 

" No, I've been working all night on those drawings 
and specifications. Can I do anything for you?" 

Obviously there was nothing, for a negative was 
implied in a brief pause ; and then — 

"What day is this?" 

"Tuesday, the sixth. Why ? " 

"Oh" — with just a shade of hesitancy — "never 
mind. You won't wait for breakfast ? " a 

"I've had a little — all I need. Don't wait dinner 
for me ; I'll be home as soon as I can drop things." 

He felt a slight pang of discomfort at leaving her 
thus abruptly, for somehow she did not seem quite 
herself; but this was quickly crowded out by a 
thought of the shop and the task which awaited him 



8 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

there. The last trace of uncertainty passed with 
her cheery response : 

"Well, good luck to the new invention !" 

It was a busy day. The morning sped and noon 
came, but he forgot dinner and everything else except 
the job in progress on the bench. The afternoon 
wore away — one o'clock, two o'clock, three — at 
last ! It was almost four when, the final touches 
having been given to the working model, he strode 
out of the shop with the glad step of a prisoner set 
at liberty. As he approached the cottage he missed 
the usual sound of the children at play in the yard. 
Opening the door, he was about to shout upstairs 
to announce his accomplishment, when he came face 
to face with the neighbor, who held her finger to her 
lips. 

"Speak low, please," she admonished him. "I've 
sent the children over to my son's to get rid of their 
noise. She's been asleep about an hour now. And," 
noting his look of alarm, " the baby's a boy, and a big 
one. He came at twenty minutes past eleven. The 
doctor got here just in time. They're both all right." 

The baby ! The word fell upon his ear with a sort 
of shock, like the sudden sound which rouses one 
from a dream. It was followed by a flood of wonder 
at his own wooden indifference, as the events of the 
last twenty-four hours moved in panoramic review 
through his memory. Of course — here was the ex- 
planation of so many things which had made only 
a shadowy impression on his mind as he noticed them : 
his wife's comparative inactivity, the uncommon 
quiet of the house, the presence of the elderly neigh- 



"AT FIRST, THE INFANT" 9 

bor, the generous, self-effacing thought for him which 
prevented any suggestion of the nearness of the crisis 
lest it might distract his mind from the problem on 
the eve of solution ! 

He crept stealthily up the stairs to the chamber 
in which the mother was lying in bed, very still. She 
had just awakened, and looked up at him with a 
curious smile playing over her face. 

"How does the machine come on?" 

"It's finished, and it works." 

"Good!" 

Her eyes followed him as he gently drew aside the 
topmost fold of a flannel wrapping that swathed a 
formless bundle in a crib by the bedside. 

"Aren't you pleased that it's a boy?" she whis- 
pered. 

"I'm glad it's all over, and that you have come 
through so well," he answered in a noncommittal 
way, "though I thought you were hoping for a girl." 

" I was, at first ; but ever since you began this last 
machine I have had it in my mind night and day — 
you seemed so wrapped up in it. And then I began 
to hope we might have another boy, so that he could 
help you with your work, and in course of time take 
it up where you leave it. He is born on the very 
day of your triumph, George, and I want him to be 
named for you." 

In vain the father protested that one George West- 
inghouse was enough in the family : the mother would 
listen to no counter proposal. And thus George 
Westinghouse, Junior, made his bow to the world on 
the sixth of October, 1846. 



io GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

The childhood of this latest addition to the family 
was not distinguished from the life of other lads in 
the village by anything that seemed to point to the 
mark he was one day to make in the world. On the 
contrary, he was noted chiefly for his continual revolt 
against the confinement of the schoolroom, his dis- 
taste for textbooks and routine study, and his pug- 
nacious disposition. He entered more or less into 
the sports of his schoolmates, but ordinary games 
did not attract him strongly. The one place in which 
he would rather be than anywhere else was his father's 
shop. His father was resolved that he should apply 
himself to his studies, and used to forbid him the 
shop during school hours ; but George was not in- 
clined to yield to such indirect compulsion, and, if 
he had made up his mind on a given morning not to 
go to school, go he would not, but would stubbornly 
stretch himself on the grass somewhere and play for 
hours with a few pieces of wood, whittling them into 
mechanical shapes and pivoting them together with 
bent pins, so that they would interplay like the 
jointed members of a piece of machinery. Not a 
few of the adult villagers used to look upon him with 
an air of pity, and wonder what was to become of 
so ill-promising a boy when he grew up. 

Discriminating observers might have read in some 
of his traits which were then regarded as least ami- 
able the signs of a masterful quality. If he felt any 
specially strong desire, he would not brook the slight- 
est opposition to his efforts to gratify it. When 
persistent demands were unavailing, he would fly 
into a rage which was terrifying to behold. Old 



"AT FIRST, THE INFANT" n 

neighbors of the family still remember these parox- 
ysms, which took the form first of screaming and 
stamping, and then of throwing himself flat and bang- 
ing his head against any hard surface that came most 
convenient — the floor, the wall of a room, the side 
of a house. Near the family cottage was a large flat 
stone on which he repeatedly thus tried conclusions 
with his skull. If every one about him remained 
obdurate, he would keep up the disturbance till his 
strength was utterly exhausted. Usually, however, 
some older member of the household, unable to en- 
dure the demonstration longer, would yield the point 
at issue, and his tears, cries, and self-torture would 
cease as suddenly as they had begun. In either event 
there was no aftermath of sullenness, but his return 
to normality was complete. Speaking in later years 
of these outbursts, he remarked with whimsical hu- 
mor : "I had a fixed notion that what I wanted I 
must have. Somehow, that idea has not entirely 
deserted me throughout my life. I have always 
known what I wanted, and how to get it. As a child, 
I got it by tantrums ; in mature years, by hard work." 
An old lady is still living who saw a good deal of 
the Westinghouse family during their residence in 
Central Bridge, and for whom George, at the age of 
six, conceived a strong attachment. "I remember 
just how he looked then," she said the other day. 
" I can see still his earnest little face, with its wrinkle 
between the blue eyes as if he were already solving 
problems, and the way he would turn it up to mine 
when he asked some trifling favor. It is true that 
he was a tempestuous child, and would fly now and 



12 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

then into a fearful passion ; but I suspect that he was 
not so much to blame for this as were his older 
brothers and the hired men about the place. They 
all seemed to take delight in teasing him, to see what 
he would do. 

"He had a strong side, nevertheless, which showed 
itself even then, and at times when you would least 
expect it. One day when he had committed some 
mischief his father called him into an inner room and 
whipped him with a switch cut from a tree. The 
switch^broke in two or three places, and with a ges- 
ture of impatience Mr. Westinghouse threw it aside, 
exclaiming: 'Pshaw! This is good for nothing.' 
George, who had been crying lustily, desisted long 
enough to point to a leather whip which hung from 
a hook on the wall, and say : 'There's a better one, 
Father.' His apparent interest in having the thing 
done properly if it must be done at all proved too 
much for his father's sobriety, and he was spared 
further punishment." 



CHAPTER II 
"The Age 'Twixt Boy and Youth" 

Not long after George's birth, Mr. and Mrs. West- 
inghouse, finding themselves somewhat cramped for 
room in the house where they were living, removed 
to a larger one a little farther down the point. On 
the new premises stood a sawmill and a gristmill, 
the conduct of which devolved upon Mr. Westing- 
house, so that he had to hire more workmen. In the 
new home three boys were born : two, Henry and 
Herman, died in infancy ; the third, Henry Herman, 
generally known as Herman, was named in memory 
of them. Increased domestic expenses, together 
with a business competition which was already mak- 
ing itself felt, led Mr. Westinghouse to consider 
means of reducing the cost of his machines. Though 
he could make the wooden parts in his shop and do 
the assembling there, he had to buy all his metal 
castings in Schenectady and haul them over by wagon 
— a tedious and expensive process when the roads 
were out of repair. When, therefore, his business 
had sufficiently expanded, he decided to remove both 
factory and family to Schenectady, and in 1856 the 
change was made. Two partners named Clute hav- 
ing joined him, the firm bought a building formerly 
used as a cement mill, on the south bank of the Erie 



i 4 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

Canal near the junction of Washington Avenue and 
the River Road, and turned it into a shop. The 
main part of this is still standing, though almost 
hidden by the pretentious structures which have 
grown up around it ; and one can trace from a neigh- 
boring elevation what the elements have left of the 
old sign, "G. Westinghouse & Co.", painted in black 
letters on the rough limestone surface of the eastern 
gable end. 

During their residence in Schenectady, the family 
lived in three houses successively. That in which 
they finally settled down about i860 is now known 
as Number 16 State Street. It is a substantial dwell- 
ing built of brick with stone and iron trimmings, and 
has of late years received additions which about 
double its original capacity. Here the older boys 
grew to manhood, all developing the individuality 
to be expected of the sons of so masterful a father. 
As soon as they reached suitable ages, Mr. Westing- 
house took them, one by one, into his shop, for a drill 
in the rudiments of mechanical work. Jay, the eld- 
est, was also given a course at the Polytechnic In- 
stitute in Troy; but on his return it soon became 
obvious that his most appropriate place was else- 
where than at the bench. He had executive ability 
and a wise discernment, including a bent for managing 
men without friction, which would have made their 
mark in a larger field ; and before long he was trans- 
ferred to a desk in the office, where he met customers, 
engaged workmen, and kept the accounts. John, 
next in age, had mechanical gifts of a high order, 
coupled later in life with a marked religious instinct 



"THE AGE 'TWIXT BOY AND YOUTH" 15 

which led him to devote much of his spare time to 
what we should now call "social work" among the 
less favored elements in the community. He was 
particularly successful in rescuing "gang" boys from 
a life of crime and starting them on paths toward use- 
ful citizenship. In the shop he found metal-working 
more to his taste than carpentry, so he handled the 
iron parts of the machines for which the wooden parts 
were constructed under his father's supervision. 
Albert, the third son, showed from the outset less 
taste for mechanics, his chief natural inclinations 
being toward books. He enjoyed good literature, 
and argued ingeniously any question which arose 
in the domestic circle. In the opinion of family 
friends, he might have had a brilliant career if edu- 
cated for the bar. 

Young George, though he waked up more after the 
removal to Schenectady, did not expand mentally 
in the direction his father had hoped. He was sent 
to school, but took only a languid interest in his 
studies, though he profited somewhat by his more 
enlivening companionship. Of this, however, he 
could not reap the fullest advantage, as his father 
was able to see little virtue in play, regarding it simply 
as a form of idleness, and preferring that George 
should come into the shop every day after school 
hours and learn how tools were used by skilled hands. 
But here came again the sense of constraint against 
which every fiber of the boy's nature had always re- 
volted. To stand at the elbow of a mature man for 
an hour and watch the plying of saw and plane, the 
boring of holes, and the driving of screws was a dreary 



16 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

occupation for him. When, for a change, he was 
shifted over to the neighborhood of his brother John, 
and looked on at the latter's handling of the metal 
parts, he felt more at liberty to criticize, and before five 
minutes had elapsed the two lads would be in a heated 
controversy, in which the temper of each would oc- 
casionally break bounds. If, on the other hand, he 
was taken away from all the rest of the workers and 
set at a bench by himself, with a pattern before him 
and the material and tools at hand for making a du- 
plicate of it, his attention would soon wander from 
his fixed task and he would become immersed in some 
mechanism of his own contriving — a little engine, or 
a miniature water wheel with fanciful connections, or 
what not. 

Tinkering in this fashion, sometimes alone and 
sometimes in company with a schoolmate of similar 
tastes, he gradually accumulated a collection of in- 
complete machines, which his conservative father 
denounced as "trumpery" and would from time to 
time consign to the scrap heap. Most of the work- 
men found something amusing in this conflict of 
wills ; but one day when • Mr. Westinghouse had 
broken up and thrown out an apparatus in the con- 
struction of which George had displayed uncommon 
ingenuity, a good-natured foreman whose sympathies 
had been going out more and more strongly toward 
the lad stayed after closing time, and, without his 
employer's knowledge, fitted up a small den in the 
loft of the building. This he turned over to George 
for an amateur workshop, and in it the young inventor 
passed many happy hours, and, near the end of his 



"THE AGE 'TWIXT BOY AND YOUTH" 17 

occupancy, designed and built a model for a rotary- 
engine. 

After hanging about the shop for a year or two 
in an irregular way, George had a serious talk with 
his father. Mr. Westinghouse had been remon- 
strating with him for his waste of time, and con- 
trasting his indifference with the earnestness of 
most of the working force, when George unexpect- 
edly retorted : 

"Those men are paid for whatever they do for you. 
What I do brings me in nothing." 

It was the first sign he had ever given of a thrifty 
spirit, and Mr. Westinghouse improved the oppor- 
tunity to ask : 

"What do you consider your services worth?" 

"I don't know; but they must be worth some- 
thing." 

"Well, George, I'll give you a chance to show what 
you can do. Beginning next Monday, I'll pay you 
fifty cents for every full day you put in here on some- 
thing useful. Saturdays, as there is no school, you'll 
be able to work all day ; other afternoons, you can 
charge up your work by the hour till you have made 
a whole day. How will that suit you?" 

"I'm ready to try it." 

The bargain was struck on the spot, and recorded 
at the cashier's desk. But George was not yet four- 
teen years old, and had not lost his liking for a play- 
spell now and then ; so one Saturday when several 
of his mates were going off for a frolic and urged him 
to accompany them, he went to his father to serve 
notice that he should not be at his post that after- 



18 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

noon. Mr. Westinghouse recognized this as a proper 
occasion for impressing a lesson. 

"A good citizen who makes an agreement to put 
in his time working," said he solemnly, "doesn't 
shirk it at the first temptation. I had a job laid out, 
that I expected you to start today." 

He led the way to a pile of pipe which he wished 
cut, and gave his son full instructions how to cut it. 

"This is hard work and will take you some time," 
he added — "perhaps all your spare hours for the 
first half of next week. I'm going out of town for a 
few days, and when I come back I hope to find the 
job about finished." 

George uttered no protest. While his father had 
been talking his own mind had leaped to a plan, and 
before noon he had rigged up a combination of tools 
which, attached to a power machine, would feed the 
pipe and do the cutting automatically. Then, after 
a few words of explanation to the friendly foreman, 
who promised to keep an eye on things in his absence, 
he threw off his overalls and joined his comrades for 
their outing. When he came home he ran over to 
the shop and found all the pipe cut as directed. Until 
his father returned, therefore, he was free to do what 
he pleased. 

While naturally gratified at this exhibition of the 
inventive faculty, Mr. Westinghouse became almost 
hopeless of converting so volatile a boy into a steady 
mechanic. One day he mentioned the matter to a 
neighbor, a clergyman, who suggested that perhaps 
the lad might do better at something which would 
call into play his unusually lively imagination. 



"THE AGE 'TWIXT BOY AND YOUTH" 19 

"I've tried him at all sorts of things," answered 
Mr. Westinghouse, with a shade of disappointment 
in his tone, "but his one desire seems to be to avoid 
work ; and you know as well as I do that no young 
man will ever amount to anything who won't work." 

"It would take a good deal to convince me," said 
the other, "that the laziest boy in the world couldn't 
be interested in something, if you gave him a wide 
enough range of choice." 

"You'd like to make a preacher of him, perhaps?" 

The minister ignored the seeming irony of the 
suggestion. 

"No, I shouldn't try to 'make' him that or any- 
thing else. If I have measured him correctly he isn't 
the kind of boy you can shape against his will. I 
think you will save time if you let him do his own shap- 
ing, and confine yourself to encouraging him when he 
finds out what he is best fitted to do." 

He was moving away, but Mr. Westinghouse de- 
tained him by laying a hand on his shoulder. 

"Look here, Dominie, all I want is to do what is 
right, and not to make a mistake which we'll feel 
sorry for later. Now, you've started me thinking. 
Tell me what you'd do if the boy were yours." 

"Well, I suppose I should not press him into spend- 
ing all his leisure time in the shop. Let him get out 
and play more. That will free his mind, and by and 
by he'll lay hold of an idea that fascinates him, and 
he'll follow it till it lands him somewhere ; he merely 
hasn't yet found his place in the world. Shall you 
send him to college?" 

"He can go if he cares to." 



20 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

"That's right. I'd even advise him, if I were you, 
to take a course. College is sometimes a great eye 
opener." 

From that day forward George was allowed a little 
more time to spend as he chose. To his father's sur- 
prise, he did not waste it absolutely in doing nothing, 
though he fell into what was, in the elder's eyes, the 
next worst thing — a habit of tinkering for hours to- 
gether on some toy device. His most ambitious 
amusement, perhaps, was playing with a little boat 
which he launched on the canal, equipped with a 
screw propeller engine built almost wholly by his 
own hands. Though it was never evident to his 
father or brothers just what he was trying to do with 
this craft, there appeared to be lurking in his own 
mind some conception of a more efficient motor than 
that which had served him as a model. Now and 
then his evolutions with his boat would result in its 
tipping over, but he never suffered any damage more 
severe than a soaking, for he had learned to take care 
of himself pretty well in the water. And thereby 
hangs a tale which we may as well recall in passing. 

One of the young men in the Westinghouse works 
was William Ratcliffe, with whom for some time 
George worked at the same bench. They grew to be 
fast friends, and used to put in their infrequent holi- 
days at some job of their own concocting. Mr. Rat- 
cliffe still owns a sleigh which they built thus in part- 
nership, and which is as good today as on the day they 
put it together. They also took a fancy at one time 
to make violins. George had studied the mechanism 
of one, and believed that he could not only construct 



"THE AGE 'TWIXT BOY AND YOUTH" 21 

an instrument but learn to play it if he could find the 
right teacher. A few practical efforts in that line, 
however, convinced him that he had no ear, and he 
gave up the notion. 

Ratcliffe was fond of swimming and soon taught 
George the art ; and in the warm weather the pair 
used to frequent a spot in the Mohawk which was a 
favorite with the town boys, who varied their frolics 
in the water with a few on land, like tying one an- 
other's clothes into hard knots, or spiriting them away 
and leaving the owners to prowl around for a half- 
hour unclad. To guard against such tricks, the more 
prudent of the bathers fell into the way of hiding 
their garments in remote places. George became 
so enthusiastic about swimming and diving that dur- 
ing the season his mind was full of these sports when- 
ever not immediately occupied with the work he had 
in hand. One night his parents were awakened by 
a sound as of some heavy body falling in an adjoining 
chamber. Running in there, they found George 
squirming about on the floor stark naked. Their 
questions at first evoked only a stupid attempt at 
response ; but, as his mind gradually cleared, he ex- 
plained that he had been dreaming of being on the 
river bank, and, divesting himself of his scant rai- 
ment, he had dived from his bed into what he imag- 
ined was deep water, and by a narrow chance had 
escaped without broken bones. Then came a search 
for his nightgown, which, under the spell of his dream, 
he had taken pains to hide from his prankish play- 
mates. All over the upper story of the house prowled 
father, mother, and son, peering into every nook and 



22 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

cranny which seemed likely to have attracted him, 
but in vain : and it was not till several days after- 
ward that the missing garment was accidentally dis- 
covered, squeezed behind a trunk which stood flat 
against the wall. 

The school George attended was in a building at 
the corner of Union and College streets, which, hav- 
ing passed through a half-century of vicissitudes, had 
little about it to gratify the eye or stimulate the am- 
bition of the young people under its roof. To his 
father's suggestion that he prepare for college, George 
had assented less because it appealed to him than 
because he had no particular argument to raise 
against it. A few of his schoolfellows of this period 
are still living in Schenectady, and remember George 
as a rather inept pupil. It was not that his mind 
was dull ; but the books he was required to study 
failed as a rule to stir his imagination, and he had only 
an indifferent gift of self-expression. However good 
an understanding he might have of a subject, as soon 
as he was called to his feet before his class, his power 
of translating thought into words seemed to suffer a 
temporary paralysis, and he would stumble through 
the exercise as if he were trusting wholly to guesswork. 
Penmanship and spelling gave him a deal of trouble, 
and he found grammar a deadly burden. This puz- 
zled most of his teachers, because his logical faculties, 
when applied to something which had captured his 
fancy, struck them as considerably above the average. 
He was also keen as to everything mathematical, 
and in free-hand drawing he excelled all competitors 
with circles that were round, and lines that were 



"THE AGE TWIXT BOY AND YOUTH" 23 

straight, and angles that measured the required num- 
ber of degrees. 

Only one member of the school faculty appears to 
have fully comprehended him. This was a woman 
who combined unusual skill as an instructor with a 
most attractive personality and a sympathetic man- 
ner. George surrendered himself unreservedly to 
her gentle sway. She seemed to recognize in him a 
certain quality not found in the other boys she 
taught, and to have an intuitive sense of the reasons 
why he hated one thing and liked another with such 
intensity ; and she adapted her treatment of him to 
these peculiarities. As a result, he was almost ro- 
mantic in his attachment to her, and the impress 
she made on his life was always gratefully acknowl- 
edged by him, his appreciation manifesting itself 
in many kindnesses he was able to extend to her 
in later years. 

In the midst of his preparatory schooling came on 
the Civil War, and George, though only fourteen years 
of age, was smitten with the prevalent martial fever. 
So were two of his brothers, Albert and John. 
Mr. Westinghouse was an ardent patriot, but he 
knew little of the spirit with which the Southern 
States had entered the Confederacy, and believed, 
like so many other loyalists in the North, that the 
hostilities would not last long after the Government 
had made a real show of strength. Hence, when 
the older boys expressed their purpose to enlist, he 
advised them to wait a while, and they reluctantly 
consented. John persisted, however, in hovering 
about the recruiting officers who came that way, and 



24 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

used to regale George, as they worked together on 
Saturdays, with a rehearsal of the war stories gleaned 
from these men. George had gradually developed 
a preference for working in metals over working in 
wood ; John had encouraged this tendency, and they 
had formed a habit of cooperating in various small- 
scale engineering enterprises. Their talks about sol- 
diering had stimulated George to a degree where he 
was ready to do something desperate for the sake of 
getting a taste of the real experience. In his own 
mind he reasoned out the situation about like this : 
Albert and John both wished to go to war but were 
prevented because they had been so imprudent as to 
mention the subject in the family circle ; his wise 
plan, therefore, would be to avoid interference by 
holding his tongue till the psychological moment, 
and then running away. 

He was tall for his age, and uncommonly mature 
of countenance ; and though his figure was spare, 
his large bones and good muscles indicated that he 
would in due time acquire a sturdy build. Unfor- 
tunately for his project, he was by nature too candid 
to be a successful secret-keeper ; and this trait, as 
well as a boyish craving for companionship, led him 
to take half a dozen of his best friends into his con- 
fidence and propose that they all run away together 
and not return till they had distinguished themselves 
by deeds of valor on the battlefield. The suggestion 
was not generally received with warmth ; many of 
the boys agreed that it would be a great lark, but did 
not dare invite the parental wrath by so bold a de- 
fiance ; others thought they might try it later, after 



"THE AGE 'TWIXT BOY AND YOUTH" 25 

they saw how their home-folk took the news of some 
other fellow's escapade. When the time for a final 
decision arrived, only one comrade was ready to go 
with him the whole length, and at once. 

One morning Mrs. Westinghouse had occasion to 
call upon George to do an errand for her, but was 
unable to find him anywhere about the house. She 
felt sure that he had not gone to school, for his strap- 
ful of books still lay where he had tossed it the after- 
noon before. Having looked for him upstairs and 
down, and called his name repeatedly from front 
windows and back, she gave up the search. A neigh- 
bor came in breathless, with the information that 
George had been seen that morning walking toward 
the railroad station with a carpetbag in his hand, 
and apparently trying to avoid observation. 

"Are you positive it was my George?" demanded 
the mother, too astonished to trust her hearing. 

"There is no question about it," the visitor assured 
her; "and one of the boys next door says George 
has been telling him for some time that he was watch- 
ing his chance to run away and go to war." 

In another minute Mrs. Westinghouse had dis- 
patched her housemaid to the Works with a message 
to her husband, apprising him of these unexpected 
developments. The good man did not seem at all 
upset, but, with a quick glance at the clock, reached 
for his hat and quitted the building. 

George, meanwhile, having put into a carpetbag 
a few essential articles of clothing, had slipped away 
soon after breakfast and taken his course through 
back streets and alleys to the station, where an ac- 



26 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

commodation train was made up daily for the East. 
He found his co-conspirator already on hand, though 
not quite so enthusiastic as at their latest previous 
meeting, and, as they had a few minutes to wait, 
George improved the time by pumping fresh vigor 
into the other boy's resolution ; then, the train having 
drawn up on the track in front of them, they were 
able to enter the nearest car and settle down in a 
forward seat headed for their hearts' desire. The 
minutes lagged like hours while the adult passengers 
climbed on one by one, and George had considerable 
difficulty in keeping his back turned toward the rear 
of the car in such a way as to elude recognition by 
any of his parents' friends who might be traveling 
that morning. 

At last the fateful instant came. The conductor 
sounded his brisk warning outside, "All aboard!", 
entered the car in which the boys sat, and promptly 
reached for the bell rope. Before he had a chance to 
pull it, however, appeared another actor on the scene. 
He was a man about fifty years of age, of stalwart 
frame, clad in a gray cloth suit and a soft hat, and 
wearing an expression on his' face which was certainly 
serious and perhaps a trifle stern. Boarding the 
train as if he owned it, he called to the conductor to 
wait a moment. Everybody in the car turned to 
see who thus peremptorily held it back — everybody, 
that is, except George : he did not need to turn, for 
he had recognized the voice, and a sudden chill had 
run down his spine as he heard it. He was conscious 
that the newcomer was taking long strides through 
the car from rear to front ; then he glanced up to see 



"THE AGE TWIXT BOY AND YOUTH" 27 

his father standing before him, with a beckoning 
finger outstretched. Mr. Westinghouse was not at 
all excited in manner, or apparently out of breath, 
though he had been obliged to hurry more than 
was his wont. He uttered no reproaches, he did 
not even raise his voice above its ordinary pitch 
as he said: "George, I guess you'd better come 
back home !" 

As was customary with any one to whom Mr. 
Westinghouse began a suggestion with his charac- 
teristic "I guess you'd better," no time was wasted 
about complying. There was no debate, no ques- 
tioning, no explanation or other dilatory recourse. 
George, thoroughly crestfallen, fished out his carpet- 
bag from under the seat and followed his father to 
the rear door and down the platform steps, looking 
to neither right nor left. He was dimly aware that 
his martial-minded companion was treading closely 
on his heels, and that the feet of the trio were barely 
firm on the ground before the belated bell rang, the 
whistle responded, and the train which was to have 
borne him to glory was off without him. 

Mr. Westinghouse walked home with his son and 
saw him start for school, where a tardy mark was 
waiting for him ; this he did not mind very much, 
but there was also a sardonic grin on the faces of some 
of the mates to whom he had confided his plans, and 
this he did mind a good deal. However, his feelings 
were considerably salved when he met his family at 
the noonday meal and observed their general dis- 
position to ignore the incident till, just before they 
were leaving the table, his father said: "Perhaps, 



28 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

George, when you are old enough to know your own 
mind and understand what it all means — if the war 
lasts till then — you may be free to go. But don't 
count on it too surely. I hope there'll be an end to 
the fighting long before that." 



CHAPTER III 
Soldier and Sailor, Student and Swain 

By the summer of 1862, Mr. Westinghouse had 
changed his mind about the duration of the war, and 
in August Albert enlisted in the Sixth New York 
Volunteer Cavalry. During the ill-fated advance 
toward Richmond in the spring of 1863 he was taken 
prisoner at Spottsylvania Court House, but was 
paroled a few days later, and in September was trans- 
ferred to the Second New York Veteran Volunteer 
Cavalry, with a lieutenant's commission. Mean- 
while conscription had begun, a drawing was an- 
nounced to be held in Schenectady, and John was 
able to face his father with the fact that the only 
alternative now lay between offering his services to 
the Government voluntarily and taking his chance 
of having to render them under compulsion. Mr. 
Westinghouse admitted that this was true, and with- 
drew all further objection to his volunteering. He 
therefore took immediate advantage of an offer, made 
him some time before, of an appointment as an Acting 
Third Assistant Engineer in the navy, and set off for 
Washington to see about it. 

George, spurred to fresh activity by John's ex- 
ample, reopened the subject with his father by a 



3 o GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

reminder that he was now nearly seventeen, sound 
and strong, and presumably as well able as he would 
be later to judge for himself in such matters. 

"Perhaps you are right, my son," assented 
Mr. Westinghouse, and that afternoon George packed 
his effects for the next move. 

As John had procured his commission through his 
father's partners, one of whom possessed consider- 
able influence with their Representative in Congress, 
George went to them to find out whether they could 
not get for him also an appointment to a position 
where he would have machinery to handle, and an 
assignment to the same ship on which John was serv- 
ing. When they told him that that was out of the 
question, he decided to try for the army instead, in 
the hope that by some good luck he might find his 
way to where his brother Albert was. Accordingly, 
he sought a recruiting station in New York, where 
he laid his desires before the officer in charge. 

"I'm afraid," remarked that gentleman, eyeing 
him critically, and with a half-repressed smile which 
George could not then understand, "we can't do all 
you wish right away. Just now it looks as if Lee's 
army may break through into Pennsylvania, and we 
are busy enlisting an emergency force to drive him 
back if he attempts it. You've never served before, 
you say?" 

"No," said George, "I'm only seventeen, and my 
father's kept me back till now." 

The officer's face sobered again, and his voice was 
very kindly as he replied : 

"I see — I see. Well, how would you like to try 




George Westinghouse 

From a War Time Portrait 



SOLDIER, SAILOR, STUDENT, AND SWAIN 31 

the thirty-days' service for a start ? It will give you 
a little experience, and show you how well soldiering 
agrees with you. We're trying to fill up the Twelfth. 
Will you sign?" 

"What position can I get in the regiment, if I do ?" 

" I fancy you will have to take a gun and a knap- 
sack, my boy, until you've proved what's in you. 
Once in the field, it will depend on yourself how far 
up you climb." 

"All right. That suits me." 

George signed the roll and dropped into his place 
at the tail of a squad who were about to be looked 
over by the surgeon. Two days later he was off for 
the front. 

At the end of his brief experimental term, which 
was marked by no exciting episode, he was more de- 
sirous than ever of seeing some real soldier life ; so 
he offered himself as a three-years' recruit for the 
Sixteenth New York Volunteer Cavalry. Here he 
renewed his inquiry about a commission. 

"You are rather young to shoulder the responsi- 
bilities of an officer," was the answer. 

"But I've already been broken in," he pleaded, 
"and I've learned a thing or two about taking care 
of men." 

" Why don't your raise a company of your own, then, 
and command it ?" 

" I would in a minute, if I had the chance." 

"That can be managed, I dare say, as far as the 
chance is concerned. Where would you go for your 
men?" 

"Back in Schoharie County, where I was born. 



32 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

I know lots of fellows out there who'd enlist if we only 
got hold of them the right way." 

To his surprise and pleasure, George received the 
next morning an assignment to recruiting duty in the 
district he had named, coupled with the condition 
that, if he brought back fifty acceptable men, he 
would be recommended for a lieutenancy. He went 
off in high spirits, visiting first his old home, Central 
Bridge, which he found pretty well stripped of avail- 
able material, though two men promised to join his 
troop. At Schoharie, Middleburg, and other well- 
settled points in the county, he discovered a like 
state of affairs. Then he pushed for the outlying 
country. A favorite resort of his boyhood had been 
the picturesque neighborhood of Fultonham, where 
Lorenzo Stewart, an old and valued employee of his 
father's, was living. Stewart took a lively interest 
in George's errand, but held out few hopes of success. 

"I suspect this part of the county is short of the 
kind of young men you are after," he explained, 
going over the names, one by one, of the farmer boys 
they both knew. Most of the eligibles, it appeared, 
had already gone south with the 134th New York. 

"All right," said George, "then I'll try my luck 
with the slouters." 

"Slouters" was the cant term used locally to desig- 
nate a thriftless class of people who lived back among 
the hills, subsisting ordinarily nobody knew how, 
and descending into the valleys only when cold or 
hunger forced them to seek a short job of work. 

"It will do you no good to go there, either," 
Stewart assured him. "John Cater has got ahead 



SOLDIER, SAILOR, STUDENT, AND SWAIN 33 

of you. He came back from the army, all dressed 
up and sleek-looking, and carried off every slouter 
in sight." 

But George was out for game, and would not let 
himself be diverted from his quest. Stewart stood 
by him manfully, and took pains to see that he should 
be included in all the " apple cuts" and other rustic 
merrymakings held thereabout during his stay. The 
fine-looking young soldier in his smart uniform 
created no slight flutter among the assembled 
maidens, and put their swains to the blush for some 
excuse for not themselves wearing the blue. George 
thoroughly enjoyed his visit among the scenes of his 
childhood, now that he had become a person of more 
consequence. It was a sore disappointment, how- 
ever, that he could pick up only his two recruits at 
Central Bridge and fifteen elsewhere in the county ; 
but with this small contingent he reported at head- 
quarters, nursing the hope that a commission might 
be issued to him in view of all he had tried to do. 

"Too bad, my boy, but you can't turn seventeen 
into fifty," was the good-humored but positive re- 
sponse to all his arguments. Back to the war, there- 
fore, went George again as a private soldier. Of 
what he did and how he fared in his second term of 
service, not much is known, beyond the fact that the 
experience was in some respects disappointing. He 
had joined the cavalry expecting that it would be 
easier to ride than to walk, but was disillusioned by 
the discovery that he would have to take care of his 
horse every night before getting any rest for himself. 
His campaigning was confined to northern Virginia ; 



34 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

it consisted chiefly of scouting duty, designed to out- 
wit the tricks of Mosby's guerrillas and involving a 
maximum of hard work for a minimum of glory. 

Although in later years he enjoyed his participation 
in the war as a reminiscence, he never volunteered it 
as a topic of conversation. When some other veteran 
of the citizen soldiery was dining with him they would 
exchange recollections, or when some of his more 
youthful guests would question him he would talk 
most pleasantly about his army life, telling how he 
and his camp mates soaked their hard-tack in frying- 
pan grease to make it eatable, and cooked bacon and 
chicken in the open fire wrapped in paper and 
smothered in clay ; how they captured a pig against 
orders ; how he once made a bread pudding with his 
own hands and how good it tasted ; what happened 
to him on picket duty, and the like. To all who 
heard him tell these stories, it was a subject of regret 
that during his military service he kept no diary or 
other personal memoranda. He was not fond of 
composition, and only a few fragments of his sparse 
correspondence are still preserved. 

From a letter sent home in December by a Sche- 
nectady boy in the Second New York Veteran Cav- 
alry, we learn that George had recently been at Camp 
Stoneman, near Washington, to visit his brother 
Albert, then a lieutenant with a splendid record for 
gallantry and efficiency. From the same note it 
appears that a man-of-war had just arrived at the 
Washington Navy Yard with John Westinghouse 
aboard, and that the brothers were to have a reunion. 
Odds and ends of information, gathered from various 



SOLDIER, SAILOR, STUDENT, AND SWAIN 35 

sources and pieced together, indicate that all three 
boys were furloughed to spend Christmas with their 
friends in the North. A family gathering was to be 
held at the house of a relative in New York, and the 
brothers, with a young cousin, were on the way to it 
when, as they passed the barracks in City Hall Park, 
Albert left his companions to enter the building for a 
brief errand. He rejoined them in a few minutes 
with an air of deep concern. 

" I can't go with you, after all," he said. " I must 
return to camp at once." With that he shook hands 
all round in farewell and reentered the barracks. 
Their glimpse of his receding figure as the door closed 
behind him was the last any of the party ever saw of 
him. A little later he and his men sailed for New 
Orleans. 

On Christmas day, 1864, just one year after the 
marred festivity, it fell to Herman, then a lad of 
eleven, to break to his parents the news of Albert's 
death in the battle of McLeod's Mills, Louisiana. 
He received it from a neighbor who had lost a son in 
the same fight. Mr. Westinghouse bore the blow 
with the stoic resignation of a man who had long ago 
counted the cost ; Mrs. Westinghouse was terribly 
broken by it, and was never the same woman after- 
ward. Albert had been distinctly the " mother's 
boy " of the little group. 

A few months before this, George, who still had a 
yearning to try his hand at marine engineering, had 
decided to shift from the army to the navy. Soon 
after joining the cavalry he had risen to be a corporal, 
but promotion beyond that threatened to be slow ; 



36 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

and on December I, 1864, by virtue of his good mili- 
tary record, and of an examination which, thanks to 
his mechanical training, he passed with marked credit, 
he was appointed an Acting Third Assistant Engineer, 
and ordered at once to duty on the ship Muscoota. 
Later he served on the Stars and Stripes, and in the 
Potomac flotilla. His friend Ratcliffe, loyal to their 
youthful companionship, lent him a lathe to keep on 
shipboard, and with its aid he improved his odd 
hours in building a small model of a sawbuck engine. 

The next year the war ended. George came home 
in the summer, and John, who meanwhile had been 
promoted one grade, followed late in the autumn. 
George showed a marked improvement as the result 
of his experience in the armed service. Before leav- 
ing home he had been considerably developed on his 
social side and learned to control his temper, through 
his association with so many boys of his own age at 
the high school. To this his discipline as soldier 
and sailor had added the habit of standing straighter 
and bearing himself with dignity, and of applying a 
keener observation to everything. He never seemed 
to be seeking for new ideas,' but absorbed them wher- 
ever he went, and after they had been duly digested 
they always bore fruit in experiment. His father 
was pleased with his increased manliness and quick- 
ened senses, but did not understand his mental pro- 
cesses much better than of old ; to all his family, 
indeed, he still seemed a good deal of a dreamer. 

It was doubtless this conception which prompted 
his father to remind him, within a few days of his 
return, of his agreement to take a college course. He 



SOLDIER, SAILOR, STUDENT, AND SWAIN 37 

did not need the reminder, having already begun 
preparation for his academic martyrdom by taking 
some of his old school textbooks from the shelf on 
which they had lain untouched during his absence, 
and running over a few subjects on which he felt un- 
certain. The records of Union College show that 
he was admitted to the scientific department, sopho- 
more class, on the fifteenth of September, 1865. The 
college then contained one hundred and ninety 
students, all of whom, according to the published 
rules, were expected to live on the campus, though 
in George's case this requirement was relaxed at his 
father's solicitation so that he could live at home. 

Of the personality of George at this period we glean 
a hint here and there which shows that it must have 
impressed the minds of his mates rather deeply in 
order to have enabled them to remember it as well 
as some of them do after the lapse of a half century. 
The Reverend Walter Scott of Boston, for example, 
pictures him as a tall, well-proportioned young man, 
with an air of self-reliance and an unusually mature 
appearance. "I recall," says Mr. Scott, "his ener- 
getic walk across the campus to the engineering rooms. 
He had the manner of a man with a definite purpose, 
pursuing a straight course toward that end. I think 
he mingled little with the students, owing probably 
to his absorption in mechanical studies and also to 
the fact that he had no room in the college buildings." 

Other contemporaries bear like witness, though 
none whom I have been able to reach has gone 
much into detail as to George's mode of life before 
and after his working hours, his associations, or his 



38 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

nontechnical tastes. One reason for this perhaps 
lies in the shortness of his collegiate career, for 
he left about the Christmas holidays. His class 
register gives him a mark of 12.50 for the fall term, 
the highest mark won by any one for the year being 
25.50. These figures are not especially enlightening, 
as the scale on which they were based cannot now be 
ascertained ; but the weight of evidence indicates 
that he did not distinguish himself in the sphere of 
book-learning. He was repeatedly absent with no 
better excuse than his desire to look on at some me- 
chanical operation then in progress in the town or 
neighborhood, appearing quite oblivious of the fact 
that college classes could not be conducted on a basis 
of haphazard attendance. 

The lines of study pursued during the fall term 
were the French and German languages, solid geom- 
etry, and English rhetoric, essays, and vocal train- 
ing. In the geometry sessions he seems to have had 
no difficulty in keeping his attention fixed, but the 
English branches were tiresome to him. For the 
foreign tongues he had neither taste nor talent, and 
made no secret of the fact. • Professor William Wells, 
who taught them, used to declare as the fruit of a 
long experience that it was folly to attempt to proph- 
esy the man from the boy, citing the case of young 
Westinghouse as his most potent illustration. "He 
was my despair," Doctor Wells would explain. " Not 
only was it impossible to stir his active interest in the 
work of the class, but, while the other boys were 
struggling with German syntax or French pronuncia- 
tion, he would amuse himself making pencil drawings 



SOLDIER, SAILOR, STUDENT, AND SWAIN 39 

on his wristbands. His sketches were always of 
locomotives, stationary engines, or something of that 
sort." 

In view of the way he had spent so much of his 
time, George was not greatly surprised at receiving 
a message one day from Doctor Hickok, the acting 
head of the college, asking him to call at the presi- 
dent's office, and he responded in expectation of a 
severe scolding if nothing worse. It did surprise 
him to have the Doctor greet him in the pleasantest 
manner, invite him to be seated, and open their con- 
versation with the inquiry : 

" Westinghouse, how do you like college, now that 
you have given it a little trial?" 

For a moment George was at a loss for an answer ; 
he could not honestly say that he liked it, though on 
the other hand he was fair-minded enough to realize 
that this was less the fault of the college than his own. 

"I dare say I should like it very well," he said, 
after a short pause, "if I had time to give my mind 
to my studies." He then proceeded to explain at 
length certain inventions he was engaged in trying 
to develop. 

It was now Doctor Hickok's turn to be taken at a 
disadvantage ; he had not looked for such frankness, 
or for so lucid an exposition of the mechanical prin- 
ciples involved in George's plans. 

"After what you have told me," said he, "it is 
plain that you would be wasting your time and your 
gifts in staying here and pursuing studies in which 
you have no heart. I will see your father at once, 
and put your case before him." 



4 o GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

George drew a deep sigh of relief. If so high an 
authority as Doctor Hickok advised his following 
his natural bent, he felt sure of being released from 
his compact and allowed to return to the occupations 
he loved. This assumption proved correct, though 
Mr. Westinghouse shook his head sadly over the 
collapse of his hope of making George a scholar — a 
hope born of his fancied discovery that his son 
would never be good for much of anything else ! 
But, pitiful as the admission of failure might be, he 
granted it with the best grace he could, and told 
George he might go to work at the bench. George 
hesitated. 

"Well, what's the matter?" asked Mr. Westing- 
house. 

"We might as well settle the wage now, Father." 

"You can have the same pay you were getting 
when you left off — a dollar a day, wasn't it?" 

"Nine shillings. That was enough for the boy 
I was before I went away; but I am practically a 
man now, and if I am worth anything I am worth a 
man's wages. Give me two dollars a day and I stay 
here ; otherwise I go where I can get that." 

" I had intended, George, to start you again at the 
old figure and give you an opportunity to show how 
much more you were worth to the business. If you 
had done well, you would have earned promotion 
soon. However, I am willing to give you a trial at 
two dollars, on the understanding that if you fall 
short of what is expected of you we go back to nine 
shillings." 

Apparently George laid himself out to prove his 



SOLDIER, SAILOR, STUDENT, AND SWAIN 41 

value to his father, lending a hand wherever he 
could be useful. Regardless of what he might be 
doing, however, his mind was busy with one special 
topic, of which the suggestion had grown out of his 
service in the navy. Before he left home he had built 
a rotary engine, which was novel enough in some of 
its features to secure a patent. His life on ship- 
board, though short, had enabled him to study 
marine engineering on its practical side, and all his 
investigations had tended to confirm his original 
belief that in this field, if not everywhere, the rotary 
principle was bound to supersede the reciprocating 
in the construction of motive machinery. Now and 
then his restlessness would get the better of him, and 
he would grasp at the chance of going away from 
Schenectady to transact an outside negotiation for 
the firm. 

It was while returning from one such expedition 
to Albany that he was held up by an accident of not 
infrequent occurrence in those days of small rails and 
light rolling stock. Two rear cars of a train running 
just ahead of his had jumped the track, and all traffic 
on that section was blocked for two hours. George 
and a fellow traveler spent most of the time watching 
the wrecking crew as they grappled with one car after 
another, painfully prying it back, inch by inch, till 
it could be finally jacked over to its place on the track. 
As the work neared its end, George, who had been 
unusually silent for several minutes, remarked with 
some impatience : "That was a poorly handled job !" 
"It was tedious," admitted his friend, "but that 
couldn't be helped." 



42 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

"Yes, it could. They could have done the whole 
thing in fifteen minutes by clamping a pair of rails 
to the track, and running them off at an angle like a 
frog, so as to come up even against the wheels of the 
nearest derailed car. Then, by hitching an engine to 
the car, they could have shunted it back into place. 
In fact, it wouldn't be a bad idea for a railroad com- 
pany to put together a car-replacer on that principle, 
and have it on hand for use in emergencies." 

"Why don't you make one and sell it to the 
railroads?" 

"That's a good idea. I'll do it." 

Before he went to bed that night George had 
thought out his plan. The next morning he made 
his drawings, and as soon as he had prepared a model 
he carried it to his father. Mr. Westinghouse 
examined it, but without expressing great enthusiasm. 

"It will cost money to carry out that scheme," 
he said as he handed back the model. " If it's worth 
anything, somebody will steal your idea — " 

"I shall patent it, of course," George broke in. 

"Yes, yes, I know. But you will have to pay the 
Government's charges and your lawyer's fees, and 
then will come the expense of manufacturing and 
marketing. You'll let yourself in for a pretty penny 
before you're through ; and where 's the money 
coming from ?" 

" I thought probably you'd lend it to me." 

"My son, if I have learned one lesson in life, it is, 
to stick to things I know something about. Now, 
I do know threshing machines, and horse powers, 
and all that, but I don't know railroads. Neither 



SOLDIER, SAILOR, STUDENT, AND SWAIN 43 

do you. If you are bound to go into this business, 
I don't suppose I can stop you ; but you will have to 
make my share a very small one." 

George realized that when his father took such a 
stand it was time thrown away to argue the question. 
But his belief that he had a good idea had not been 
weakened by the discussion, and, with his father's 
little contribution in his pocket, he seized his first 
opportunity to call upon several men in the city who 
were recognized as shrewd investors and laid his plan 
before them. Some put him aside with slight atten- 
tion, but two of his business acquaintances were 
willing to risk small sums in his venture. A part- 
nership was thus formed, each of the two capitalists 
contributing five thousand dollars and George his 
father's modicum of money and the right to use his 
patent. Under their contract, also, he was to travel 
for the concern. 

The work done on this device had brought him into 
contact with other problems of railway construction 
and operation, among them being the making of a 
more durable frog than the cast-iron ones then in 
use. This part of a railroad track is subjected to 
severe service, and the wear upon it is so great that 
frequent replacing of the frogs was necessary, in- 
volving a heavy cost for material and labor and seri- 
ous interference with traffic during replacement. 
The remedy Westinghouse proposed was the em- 
ployment of cast steel instead of cast iron and the 
making of the frog reversible, so that when one side 
was worn out it could be turned over. By the com- 
bined use of the more durable metal and the feature 



44 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

of reversal, the life of the frog was increased more 
than twenty fold, resulting in its very extended em- 
ployment. The right to use his patent on this in- 
vention he assigned to the firm, as he had his replacer 
patent. 

In connection with this development, it is inter- 
esting to record the fact that Westinghouse was 
probably the first man, in our country at least, and 
possibly in the world, to produce steel castings, 
as that term is now applied. This is an art that has 
very slowly developed through many difficulties 
until it has attained a most important status in metal- 
lurgical production. He knew nothing about the 
subject except what he had picked up by scant oppor- 
tunities for observation in early attempts to have his 
car-replacers and frogs made at existing steel plants ; 
but he saw no reason why steel castings could not 
be produced, and so went ahead with his plans to the 
extent that was necessary for his particular purpose. 

The experimental car-replacers and frogs were 
made at Troy, New York, and at Pompton, New 
Jersey. It was after he had invented the frog, but 
before his patent on it had been issued, that, having 
been to Pompton to ascertain what arrangements he 
could make for its manufacture, he was starting for 
home from New York by the Hudson River Railroad, 
when he met with an adventure which gave a fresh 
zest to his life. His train was crowded with pas- 
sengers. He could have found a seat in the smoking 
car, but as he did not smoke he preferred trying his 
fortune elsewhere. Not until he reached the last 
car did he find a vacant place, and that was beside 



SOLDIER, SAILOR, STUDENT, AND SWAIN 45 

a young woman whose appearance attracted him 
instantly. In a few minutes he had engaged her in 
conversation and drawn forth the information that 
her home was in Roxbury, New York, but that she 
had friends in Brooklyn, and was now on her way 
to visit relatives in Kingston. Shortly before she 
reached her destination, he expressed the hope that 
she would allow him to continue their acquaintance. 
The modest hesitancy with which she received the 
suggestion reminded him that she knew nothing 
about him except what he had incidentally let fall in 
the course of their chat ; and, with characteristic 
resourcefulness, he tore a page from his notebook 
and scribbled on it the addresses of three or four 
substantial persons who could answer any questions 
concerning his antecedents and character. She ap- 
peared to be reassured by his manner, for she con- 
sented to his calling upon her, and when he re- 
mounted the car platform after helping her off he 
was as jubilant as if he had won a great triumph. 
The first thing he did on reaching Schenectady was 
to seek the pastor of the church he attended, and ask 
him to write a letter to the young lady, stating who 
he was, and the standing of the Westinghouses in the 
community. 

His family was struck with his light-heartedness 
when he came to the tea table that evening, and one 
of his sisters rallied him a little on it. 

"You look as if you had won a prize in a lottery," 
she said. 

"I am not sure that I have won it yet," he re- 
sponded, "but I think I have a good chance." 



46 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

Mr. and Mrs. Westinghouse exchanged quick 
glances. Both disapproved strongly of anything in 
the nature of gambling, and were somewhat startled 
at his confession. He let the whole party puzzle 
over his case for a few minutes before he explained : 

"I've met the woman I am going to marry." 

Mr. Westinghouse regarded him with a quizzical 
air. 

"The woman you are going to marry, eh?" he 
commented, with mock seriousness. "And are you 
proposing to support her, or is she to support you?" 

" I've no fear that I can't take care of a wife," was 
George's self-sufficient answer. 

"You haven't built your house yet, I suppose?" 

"No, we may come here for a while and build the 
house later." 

"Ah!" 

That was all anybody said at the time, but that 
George was in earnest was evident when, after two 
visits to Kingston and three to Roxbury, he an- 
nounced to his mother that he was the accepted lover 
of Marguerite Erskine Walker; that they had de- 
cided to be married in Brooklyn on the eighth of the 
following August, and that he would like to bring 
his wife home till they could find a house suited to 
their needs and purse. 




George Westinghouse and Mrs. Westinghouse 
During their Earlier Days of Wedded Life 



CHAPTER IV 
Opportunity Knocks at the Door 

To the reader whose traveling days have fallen 
within the last quarter-century, the air brake in use 
on the modern railroad is so much a matter of course 
that it might have existed from the beginning of 
time. How recent an invention it is, and what a 
revolution it has accomplished, can be appreciated 
only by those of us who can remember the conditions 
that prevailed before its coming. 

Hand-braking was both difficult and dangerous. 
A brakeman stood between every two cars on a pas- 
senger train, and, at a point about half a mile from 
the next stopping place, he would begin to turn a 
horizontal handwheel on one platform so as to 
tighten slowly a chain that set the brakes on a single 
pair of wheels. When he had wound the chain taut 
he would step across to the opposite platform and 
repeat the operation on the handwheel there. No 
matter how skilled all the brakemen on a train might 
be, their work was always uneven, for no two cars 
would respond to the brake with the same promptness, 
and the slower ones would bump into the quicker, 
adding to the hazards of the task. A freight train 
was harder to care for than a passenger train, because 



48 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

the brakemen had to ride on top of the cars in all 
weathers, with the liability of being knocked off by 
a low bridge, frozen in midwinter, or, on windy or 
slippery nights, missing their footing and falling 
between the cars. 

These possibilities and others were brought vividly 
before the mind of young Westinghouse one day 
when he was on his way from Schenectady to Troy 
to meet an engagement at the Bessemer Steel Works. 
His train coming to a sudden standstill midway be- 
tween stations, he got off, with several fellow pas- 
sengers, to ascertain the cause of the delay. A 
short distance ahead the distorted hulks of two loco- 
motives, and a stretch of track strewn with over- 
turned or broken cars and the remains of what had 
been a solid cargo of merchandise, told their story : 
two heavily loaded freight trains had come together 
with a crash. The day was clear, the roadbed at 
that point was level, the track was well railed and 
smooth and straight ; it seemed as if a collision could 
hardly have occurred except through gross careless- 
ness. Westinghouse suggested as much to one of 
the company's employees who was standing near, 
supervising the clearing of the track. 

"No," answered the man, "the engineers saw each 
other, and both tried their best to stop, but they 
couldn't." 

1 ' Why not ? Wouldn't the brakes work ? ' ' 

"Oh, yes, but there wasn't time. You can't stop 
a train in a moment." 

This remark rang in the young man's ears the rest 
of the day. Fortunately, no lives had been lost in 



OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR 49 

the wreck, but his train was delayed so long that he 
missed his appointment, and the annoyance gave 
pungency to questions which kept rising in his mind : 
They hadn't time? Why not? Suppose one of 
those trains had been full of passengers instead of 
freight ? Suppose it had been the train he was riding 
on ? Here was a subject even better worth studying 
than the replacement of derailed cars, which had 
commanded so much of his attention as the result 
of an earlier accident. 

Obviously, the key to the collision lay in the lapse 
of time between the "down brakes" whistle and the 
clamping of the brake shoes on the wheels. The 
engineers doubtless acted quickly enough when they 
apprehended the danger ; but, if, instead of sounding 
a signal to several other men, these two had been 
able to apply the brakes instantly themselves, the 
possibilities of damage would at least have been re- 
duced to a minimum. How could this be made 
practicable ? 

The first idea that occurred to him was to connect 
the brakes on the several cars with the coupling 
mechanism in such a way that when the steam was 
shut off and the brakes were set on the locomotive 
by the engineer, the consequent closing-up of the 
cars would automatically set their brakes also. A 
few experiments, however, with a miniature ap- 
paratus rigged up in his father's shop, convinced him 
that the scheme would be quite unworkable if the 
ounces of his little model were translated into the 
tons of a real train. Walking one Sunday afternoon 
past a siding on which stood a few idle freight cars, 



50 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

another thought came to him : Why would it not be 
perfectly feasible to extend underneath the whole 
train a long brake chain, which could be suddenly 
drawn taut by some device close to the hand of the 
engineer, and thus bring all the brakes into action? 
While he was still pondering this question, business 
called him to Chicago. Here he was talking one day 
with Superintendent Towne of the Chicago, Bur- 
lington and Quincy Railroad, when the conversation 
turned upon increasing the safety of trains by better 
braking facilities. 

"Come in tomorrow afternoon," he said to West- 
inghouse, as they parted, "and we'll go down to the 
yard where they make up our prize train, the Aurora 
Accommodation. We've put a brake on that which 
seems to do all that can be done in the brake line. 
I'll have the inventor over to meet you, and we'll 
inspect the train together. You'll find him an in- 
teresting fellow, and he'll talk brake with you from 
morning till night if you'll let him." 

Westinghouse gladly accepted the invitation. He 
found the inventor sociability itself, but when he let 
drop a remark that he, too, was thinking over a 
braking contrivance, it was not very hospitably 
received. 

"You are throwing away your time, young man," 
the inventor presently asserted, with an air of finality. 
"I went all over the ground before completing my 
invention, and my patents are broad enough to cover 
everything." 

But Westinghouse was not to be so easily fright- 
ened off. The brake, as he noted on examination, 



OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR 51 

consisted of a windlass on the locomotive, which 
could be revolved by pressing a grooved wheel against 
the flange of the driving wheel, so as to wind up a 
chain that ran underneath the entire train, just as 
he had tentatively figured. That the two men should 
have hit upon the same fundamental feature was 
not strange, if we reflect that up to that hour no road 
in the United States used a brake which was not 
moved by a chain. 

The chain of the apparatus was carried along its 
course by running over a series of rollers connected 
with the brake levers of every car in such a manner 
that, as soon as the chain was tightened, the brakes 
came instantly against the wheels. To Westinghouse 
the windlass arrangement seemed clumsy, incapable 
of accurate control, and subject to rapid deteriora- 
tion under wear. For this, he believed a steam 
cylinder might be substituted, placed beneath and 
supplied with steam from the engine, its piston being 
so connected as to draw the chain taut when desired. 
Then arose a troublesome question. The Burlington 
train which was undergoing demonstration consisted 
of only four or five cars, whereas what he was aiming 
to devise was a cab-controlled brake system for a 
train made up of two or three times as many cars 
and requiring a chain of correspondingly greater 
length ; and where was the locomotive which could 
carry a cylinder capable of taking up so much slack ? 

To meet this difficulty, he conceived the idea of 
supplying all the cars with separate cylinders, fed 
from the engine by connections between the cars. 
But here came in the factor of temperature ; for even 



52 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

in warm weather the steam would be condensed be- 
fore it had reached the hindmost car, while in winter 
the condensed steam would freeze. Plainly, he 
would have to seek some other agency than steam 
for transmitting power from the cab. 

"Opportunity." says the familiar maxim, "knocks 
once at every man's door." The guise in which it 
knocked at George Westinghouse's door is worthy 
of a place among the romances of invention. 

It was the noon hour in the office of the Westing- 
house Works on the canal bank. The heads of the 
concern had gone home for dinner, and the under- 
lings who had brought their lunches with them were 
gathered in groups, talking. Apart from the rest 
sat George Westinghouse at a table, but looking out 
of the window as he turned over and over in his mind 
the most puzzling features of his brake problem. In 
the midst of his meditations he became vaguely con- 
scious of the presence of some one close to his elbow. 
Whoever it was had apparently been standing there 
some time. Looking up suddenly, his eyes encoun- 
tered those of a young woman whom he now recalled 
having noticed when she entered the office, with a 
somewhat older companion, just after the noon 
whistle blew. In her hand she carried a brown- 
covered pamphlet that looked like a magazine. She 
held this toward him at once. 

" I am trying to raise a little money," she explained, 
"by taking subscriptions for the Living Age. May 
I show it to you?" 

"No, I never read magazines," he answered, 
waving her away. 



OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR 53 

"I thought, maybe — " she ventured timidly. 

"Try some of those fellows over there," he in- 
terrupted, motioning toward a table around which 
four or five young men were gathered in conversation. 

"I have tried them," pleaded the girl, "but they 
all put me off in the same way. It is discouraging." 
And in response to a beckoning touch from her com- 
panion she started slowly toward the door. Some- 
thing in her gentle appearance and manner moved 
him to repent a little of his brusqueness, and he 
reached out for the magazine she had proffered him. 
Opening it at random, and passing over a few pages 
of fiction and miscellaneous essays, his eye was caught 
by an article entitled "In the Mont Cenis Tunnel." 
It looked interesting. 

"What are you trying to earn money for?" he 
inquired. 

"I am studying to be a teacher," she said, "and I 
haven't the means to finish my course. I didn't 
know what else to do, so I took an agency for the 
magazine in the hope — " 

"How far will this go toward a subscription?" 
he interrupted again. He had fished a bank note 
from his pocket. 

"Two dollars? That will pay for three months." 

With a smile, he put down his signature and ad- 
dress in her order-book. She hesitated, and held out 
her hand. 

"My magazine, please. It's my only sample 
copy." 

"Well, begin my subscription with that number. 
There's something in it I want to read." 



54 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

She promised and withdrew. He never saw her 
again, to his knowledge ; but their brief interview 
was to have momentous consequences. 

The magazine came in due time ; in the interval, 
other matters had become pressing, and it lay un- 
opened for a few days among his papers at home. 
Then, one evening, having an hour to spare, he picked 
it up and turned to the article which had first at- 
tracted his attention. The author, a recent visitor 
to the Mont Cenis tunnel, then in course of con- 
struction, described in picturesque phrases the moun- 
tain chain, the surrounding country, the approaches. 
All very well, of course, but what Westinghouse 
wanted came further on. The engineers in charge, 
he read, had first considered following the usual prac- 
tice of sinking vertical shafts or wells from the upper 
surface at convenient distances apart, and cutting 
through horizontally from one of these to another ; 
but all the shafts would have been of enormous depth, 
and one of them, it was estimated, would have re- 
quired nearly forty years to bore, so that plan had 
to be abandoned, and the tunnel opened from its 
opposite ends, the respective gangs working their 
way toward each other. If they did this by hand, 
fifty or sixty years must pass before they could meet 
in the heart of the mountain. Steam machinery 
might be used for boring ; but steam requires fire, 
and fire feeds on air, and when a gang of laborers 
had penetrated three miles into the bowels of the 
earth they would need all the air they could get for 
their own lungs. 

An English engineer had invented an apparatus 



OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR 55 

which by steam power would drive a drill like a 
battering-ram against the face of the rock and make 
holes for blasting. About the same time three Italian 
engineers, who had been experimenting with com- 
pressed air as a motor for driving a railway train up 
a steep incline in the Apennines, conceived the idea 
that the combination of the air motor with the 
drilling machine would solve the tunnel-boring prob- 
lem. The power would cost nothing, and, instead 
of consuming air, would supply it to the workmen. 
"The result," the article continued, "has been a 
perforating machine, moved by common air com- 
pressed to one sixth its natural bulk, and conse- 
quently, when set free, exercising an expansive force 
equal to six atmospheres." 

With a triumphant ejaculation, Westinghouse 
sprang from his chair, and threw the open magazine 
down on the table. At last he had the answer to 
his riddle ! If compressed air could be conveyed 
through three thousand feet of pipe and yet retain 
enough efficiency to drive a drill through the solid 
stone heart of a mountain chain, it could certainly 
be carried the length of a railroad train and still exert 
the force required to set the brakes on the hindmost 
car. The discovery was his last waking thought 
that night, and the first thing to welcome his return- 
ing consciousness the next morning ; and at once he 
began making working drawings of the machinery 
necessary for his purpose. 

His brief encounter with the Chicago inventor had 
taught our young friend prudence, and he scrupu- 
lously kept his own counsel on the new turn he was 



56 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

taking. He still went on his travels from time to 
time to sell his earlier inventions ; but it had become 
plain that for the present there was little more money 
to be made from his reversible frog. This was not 
because the frog was not as useful as ever, but, since 
it was made of cast steel, it was so durable that the 
roads rarely renewed their supply. His partners 
became restless under the prospect of reduced 
income, and, after proposing one and another im- 
practicable scheme for cutting down expenses, they 
summoned him to a confidential council one day, 
announcing that they had a matter of grave im- 
portance to call up. 

It was a dismal afternoon when the three men 
met in the little wooden house which they had 
adopted as headquarters for their business. The 
sky, shrouded in dark, threatening clouds, and a cold 
rain, swept by heavy gusts of wind against the grimy 
window panes and keeping up a constant fusillade 
on the roof, united to make a theatrical setting for 
the scene which followed. Westinghouse was 
scarcely more than a boy. His partners were men 
of mature years, recognized in the community as 
persons of substance. After a few minutes' general 
discussion of the way sales had declined and the 
reasons therefor, one of the older men broached the 
topic which had inspired their desire for a meeting. 

"The business," said he, "has become too small 
for three partners. As two of us have furnished all 
the capital, while the third has put in merely his 
time, it seems the logical thing to split right on that 
line. In other words, you" — addressing Westing- 



OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR 57 

house — "should either buy us out, or else retire 
and turn over the whole thing to us." 

The young inventor's indignation was stirred by 
this summary treatment. 

"You know very well," he answered, "that I am 
in no position to buy you out, so what's the use of 
talking about that?" 

"Well," the other reminded him, "we left open 
an alternative." 

"If I retire, what do you propose to pay me for 
my patents?" 

"Nothing. You have had the use of our money 
from the start, in return for your services as salesman. 
If necessary, we can hire an outside traveling man 
to take your place, and lay him off when trade is dull." 

By this time George was worked up to a fine fit 
of temper. 

"So you expect me to make you a present of my 
patent rights?" he cried. "Well, you have missed 
your guess, for I don't intend to. We'll break up 
this business here and now, if you say so ; but from 
the moment you and I part company, you make no 
further use of my patents without paying me as you 
would a stranger !" 

"We'll see !" sneered the spokesman for the other 
side. 

"We will !" retorted George, hotly, as he buttoned 
his overcoat about him and strode out into the storm. 

The two older men had been prepared for a rather 
trying interview with their youthful partner, but had 
not counted on his ending it in this defiant style. 
With a bride to support and no visible means with 



58 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

which to do it, they had looked to see him surrender 
at discretion. Probably they would have been still 
more astonished had they heard him, at his father's 
table that evening, announce his intention of going 
to Pittsburgh. 

"How long shall you be away ? " asked his mother. 

"I don't know — perhaps I'll stay there, if I like 
it," said George. 

This note of confidence delighted his young wife, 
who declared that nothing would please her better 
than to live in Pittsburgh, which she had heard was 
a growing city and interesting. Then George ex- 
plained that, a few weeks ago, he had learned of a 
steel-making plant in Pittsburgh which, with its 
superior facilities, could unquestionably make his 
replacement apparatus much cheaper than it could 
be made in mills nearer home, and he had been in 
correspondence with the concern on the subject, 
with the intention of laying the matter before his 
partners as soon as there were definite data to report. 
Now he was absolved from any obligation to them 
and could go ahead on his sole responsibility. 

He made his journey according to program, with 
the purpose of arranging for the firm of Anderson 
and Cook to manufacture the replacer at their own 
cost and employ him as a traveling salesman. Never 
having been in Pittsburgh before, he left his luggage 
at the station on his arrival, and started out to find 
his way to the office of the firm, which, his notebook 
told him, was at the corner of Second Avenue and 
Try Street. He was slowly walking away from the 
station, hoping to discover some signs to guide him, 



OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR 59 

when he saw coming toward him a young man of 
about his own age, tall, good-looking, and well dressed. 
The stranger espied him at the same moment, and 
the attraction seemed to be mutual, for they halted, 
facing each other. Westinghouse explained where 
he wished to go, and inquired the way. The young 
man not only pointed it out, but volunteered to go 
along for a short distance. In a few minutes they had 
exchanged names, and were chatting like old friends. 

The stranger, it appeared, was Ralph Baggaley, 
a member of one of the most prominent families in 
Pittsburgh, and the general manager of a local 
foundry. He had received a part of his education 
in Germany, and took a keen interest in technical 
matters. • Thus guided, Westinghouse presently 
found himself at the office of Anderson and Cook, 
and closeted with the senior partner, who soon ar- 
ranged with him to start on the road at once and 
solicit orders from the railroad companies. 

Of this opportunity Westinghouse made the most. 
He filed immediately in the Patent Office at Washing- 
ton a caveat on his air brake ; and from that day 
forward every railroad officer with whom he discussed 
the replacer and frog was required later to listen to 
an exposition of the brake. It was uphill work. 
One would feign attention, perhaps, only to show by 
his questions at the end of the monologue that he 
had not grasped more than half that his caller had 
been saying. Another would excuse himself for lack 
of time before the talk had proceeded far. Among 
those approached was "Commodore" Cornelius 
Vanderbilt, who proved a good-enough listener, but 



60 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

then, in the direct manner for which he was famous, 
dismissed the whole project as too imaginative for 
serious consideration. 

From time to time, Westinghouse would return 
to Pittsburgh to report progress with his sales. On 
one of these visits he encountered Baggaley again, 
and, after an evening's exchange of experiences and 
opinions, confided to him the air brake scheme. 
Baggaley was polite, but by no means enthusiastic ; 
it was plain that, in spite of his friendship for the in- 
ventor, he regarded the invention as ingenious but 
visionary. As Westinghouse warmed to his theme, 
however, and grew not only eloquent, but convincing 
in his reasoning, Baggaley became infected with his 
spirit and began to conjure up in his own mind the 
great possibilities of the device. As he was leaving 
he said: "Westinghouse, we must lose no time in 
putting this thing before some of the big men in the 
railroad world." 

The other's face fell. 

"I could launch it without much difficulty," said 
he, "if I had a little capital. I have seen several 
railroad men already. They have no way of answer- 
ing my arguments about the value of the invention 
if it will work, but I haven't found one yet who was 
willing to stand the expense of giving it a trial." 

"Then a man who has money to risk would be of 
more use to you just now than one who knows 
railroading?" 

"That's it." 

"Perhaps your father would help you now, if you 
put the case before him in that way." 



OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR 61 

Once more George approached his father in the 
hope of inducing him to buy a fractional interest in 
the patent ; but, in the correspondence which fol- 
lowed, Mr. Westinghouse manifested more strongly 
than ever his distaste for what he still regarded as a 
pure speculation. 



CHAPTER V 
Doubt Changed to Certainty 

In spite of his air of confidence, Westinghouse had 
begun to wonder, after his series of rebuffs, whether 
there might not be some technical feature of his in- 
vention which made men of broader training and 
experience than his suspicious of it. None of them 
had suggested such a thing, though he had given 
them plenty of openings ; possibly, he reflected, 
they were too considerate of his feelings to tell him 
the truth to his face. He resolved therefore to ob- 
tain one verdict on which he could depend as un- 
biased even by courtesy. Baggaley had announced 
an intention to back the venture with a few thousand 
dollars he was able to command, so that they could 
be prepared to take instant advantage of any pro- 
posal that might suddenly come to them for an ex- 
periment ; but Westinghouse was reluctant to let 
his friend assume such a risk till both felt sure that 
they were on solid ground. 

"We are wasting time with so much hesitation," 
declared Baggaley one day. "Let me put all the 
drawings, directions, and claims into the hands of a 
man I know, the most highly skilled mechanical 
expert in the city of Pittsburgh, and have him pass 



DOUBT CHANGED TO CERTAINTY 63 

on them. It will cost something, for he gets good 
fees for his opinions, but I think it will pay in the 
end." 

Westinghouse consenting, this was done. The 
expert gave the subject his careful scrutiny, and in 
the course of a fortnight handed back a written 
opinion, which his young client read with feverish 
eagerness. It was a sweeping condemnation of the 
whole scheme as not only unsound but nonsensical. 
Baggaley hurried with the paper to Westinghouse, 
who went over it twice before handing it back. The 
rising color in his face showed that he was angry, 
but he gave no immediate vent to his feelings. 

"How much did your expert charge you for that 
death sentence?" he asked, after a little. 

"One hundred dollars." 

"Well, what are you going to do about it?" 

"Watch me and see." And Baggaley, setting his 
teeth hard, tore the manuscript into ribbons and 
threw it into the grate. As it did not catch at once, 
he struck a match and lighted the little pile, standing 
over it till the last fragment of paper had been turned 
into ashes, and the smoke from it had disappeared 
up the chimney. 

"That's a nice way to treat an expert's report," 
remarked Westinghouse with grim humor, as he 
followed the other's motions with his eyes. "Ap- 
parently you don't consider the fellow's opinion 
worth so much now as you did before you got it?" 

"It was worth the hundred dollars I paid for it — 
every cent : it has taught me a lesson that I could 
not have bought otherwise for ten times the money. 



64 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

Hereafter I back my own judgment and let outsiders 
go. George, I'll put up your common sense against 
the special education of any expert in Christendom ! 
Now let's get to work, so as to be ready for the show 
that somebody is sure to give us soon." 

Both took fresh heart and plunged in with a will. 
Although it was an expensive undertaking, Westing- 
house, with Baggaley's support, prepared the ap- 
paratus for an experiment as elaborately as if they 
had a train of cars already at the door, waiting to be 
equipped. But even the railroad managers to whom 
the subject was presented in its new light were dis- 
posed to fight shy of it. Their rolling-stock was 
already supplied with brakes, they argued, and, while 
it was always possible that something better than 
they had might come along, they felt that, if they 
had procured the best outfit at that time in general 
use, they had done their duty to the public, and 
spent as much of their stockholders' money as they 
had a right to. Now and then one would concede 
a half-promise that he would lay the question before 
his directors at their next meeting ; but either he 
failed to do so, or the directors declined to look into 
it, and the weeks slipped by till the autumn of 1868 
was at hand. In the meantime Westinghouse had 
brought his wife from Schenectady, and they had 
established themselves in Pittsburgh in a very modest 
way. 

Then came upon the scene Robert Pitcairn, local 
superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad, who 
promptly took a strong fancy to Westinghouse. 
After lending a sympathetic ear to the usual ex- 



DOUBT CHANGED TO CERTAINTY 65 

planation of the brake and prophecies of its future 
importance, "If I can get my people interested," 
said he, "I believe there is enough in the invention 
to be worth a fair trial." 

The flagging hopes of the young men sprang up 
with a bound. A few days later, at Mr. Pitcairn's 
instigation, Superintendent Williams came on from 
Altoona accompanied by Andrew J. Cassatt, then 
assistant superintendent of motive power for the 
company and already recognized as one of its coming 
notables. The two looked the apparatus over with 
great particularity, and interrogated its sponsors 
with an intelligence no one else except Mr. Pitcairn 
had thus far displayed. This carried the matter a 
stage further than anything that had preceded it ; 
they were frank enough to say that they regarded 
the invention as having more than ordinary merit, 
but — and here followed the old, familiar reaction — 
they were not prepared to recommend that their 
company shoulder the entire expense of a practical 
demonstration. Could not the young men arrange 
to bear this, provided the company would furnish the 
track and the train, the engineer and the crew, free 
of charge? 

No, the young men did not see their way clear to 
do so. They were sorry, but, in constructing a com- 
plete equipment for a locomotive and one car, they 
had already gone to as heavy expense as they felt 
justified in incurring. Could not the company meet 
them on a little more advantageous ground? Mr. 
Cassatt and his companion expressed their serious 
doubts. If they could individually do just what 



66 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

they wished to without consulting any one else, they 
would be entirely willing to offer more liberal terms 
for the sake of an experiment. The most they could 
do was to promise that they would think everything 
over conscientiously and make a perfectly well- 
balanced report, but they would hold out no encour- 
agement to look for a more favorable decision from 
headquarters. 

In the midst of the brief depression which followed 
this rapid rise and fall of his anticipations, Westing- 
house received one day an unheralded visit from 
Superintendent W. W. Card of the Steubenville 
division of the Panhandle Railroad. 

"I understand," said he, "that you have invented 
a remarkable brake?" 

Westinghouse, hardly able to trust his ears, as- 
sured Mr. Card that this was the fact, and proceeded 
to expatiate on the special excellences of his invention. 
Instead of the polite repression he had learned to 
expect from railroad officers when he opened his 
floodgates of panegyric, he met with incitements to 
go on from one point to another. And not only that, 
but his extraordinary visitor, after listening atten- 
tively to all he had to say, examined the sample 
apparatus, part by part, with an appraising eye, 
accompanying the inspection with comments which 
showed that not a word of the explanation had been 
lost upon him. 

"If this will do all it appears capable of," was his 
summing-up, as he surveyed the mechanism once 
more in perspective, "you have opened a gold mine, 
Mr. Westinghouse. The railroads have been waiting 



DOUBT CHANGED TO CERTAINTY 67 

a long time for a really good brake. What we have 
now will answer only so long as we can find nothing 
better in the market. When the right one comes 
along, it will find the roads all ready for it." 

A few days later he called again, bringing with him 
the purchasing agent of his company, who was as 
much impressed as he had been with the promise the 
new device held forth ; but, in spite of Card's urgent 
appeal that he order an experimental outfit and make 
a practical test at the company's cost, the agent de- 
clined, on the ground that he dared not take so 
material a step without authority from the directors. 
He would, he added, go before the board with 
Mr. Card and put the case to them as strongly as 
he could. 

He was as good as his word. The directors, how- 
ever, balked at the proposed outlay, and the net 
result of the whole negotiation was a written order 
from the president of the company, Thomas L. Jewett, 
that the use of a train for a trial trip be placed at the 
disposal of the inventor, conditioned on the latter's 
contracting to equip it at his own expense and to 
reimburse the company for any damage done to 
locomotive or cars by the attachment of the appa- 
ratus. 

This was no better, really, than the Pitcairn-Cas- 
satt proposal, but the young men were tired of al- 
ternate hopes and disappointments, and grasped at 
it rather than wait longer. They differed only on 
one point. Westinghouse, with his fervid imagina- 
tion in full action, was willing to run into almost any 
debt for the money needed to get ready ; Baggaley, 



68 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

who had had some experience in handling funds, 
insisted that they must keep every expenditure down 
to the lowest practicable figure. With what they 
had already done in the way of building a specimen 
brake apparatus, it took them a comparatively short 
time to complete their preparations, and on the day 
appointed they had on hand their air pump, their 
main reservoir for the locomotive, cylinders for four 
cars — the maximum length of the accommodation 
train on which the test was to be made — and the 
piping and hose connections required to connect the 
locomotive reservoir with the car cylinders. On 
the morning fixed for the trial trip, the rear car of the 
train was reserved for a party of invited guests, in- 
cluding those officers of the Panhandle company who 
were not too timid to risk life and limb with an un- 
tried device, and a few magnates of other companies 
who seemed to have an open mind on the subject of 
the new brake. 

Daniel Tate, the engineer, was a bright young fel- 
low, and it did not take Westinghouse a great while 
to give him the final instructions about the brake so 
that he felt perfectly confident of his ability to make 
it work. Westinghouse, as he descended from the 
cab, grasped Tate's hand and wrung it with warmth. 

"All I ask of you, Dan," said he earnestly, "is to 
give this thing a fair show. Good luck to you !" 

Dan nodded a promise, and reached for his bell 
rope. As he did so, something dropped from his 
hand, the one Westinghouse had been shaking. It 
was a little paper wad, which, when he had picked 
it up and smoothed it out, proved to be a fifty-dollar 



DOUBT CHANGED TO CERTAINTY 69 

note. Acting on quick impulse to restore what he 
feared was lost money, he leaned out of the cab and 
looked down the train ; Westinghouse was just 
boarding the hindmost car. Their eyes met, and 
Tate held up the bill. Westinghouse smiled, but 
motioned him to put it into his pocket. Tate did 
so, well pleased with the generosity of the gift, but 
little suspecting that it contained the last dollar the 
young man had in purse or in prospect. 

Within a short distance of the Panhandle station 
was a tunnel about one sixth of a mile long, piercing 
Grant Hill and emerging at Fourth Avenue, where 
accommodation trains were accustomed to halt to 
pick up passengers. As this trial train was not to 
stop there, Tate rapidly increased its speed till it 
was moving at the rate of about thirty miles an hour. 
Abundant precaution was supposed to have been 
taken to prevent pedestrians or vehicles from getting 
upon the track at the two surface crossings between 
there and the bridge spanning the Monongahela River, 
beyond which the Panhandle ran into the open coun- 
try. But, of course, "a fool there was" in the person 
of a drayman on Second Avenue who disregarded 
all warnings and pushed ahead till, as his horses 
stepped into the space between the rails, he saw 
bearing down upon him, only two blocks away, the 
big, black front of a locomotive. It was too late to 
pull back, and in a frenzy of terror he laid the lash 
with all his might over the animals' flanks. The 
horses were as badly demoralized as he, and their 
first response was to plunge forward with a motion 
which loosened the crosswise plank he was using for 



70 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

a seat, and threw him to the ground with his body 
across one of the rails. 

The whole thing had happened in barely an instant 
of time, and a tragedy was averted only by the quick 
wit of the engineer. Tate, who had just been turn- 
ing over in his mind the most effective way of bring- 
ing the train to a standstill at the first station where 
it was to halt, reached instinctively for the brake 
valve and gave it a mighty twist. The air rushed 
out of the compressor through the pipes into the 
cylinders beneath the cars, and the pistons brought 
the brake shoes with force against the wheels. There 
was a grating sound and a sudden jar as the train 
came to a stop with the cowcatcher of the locomotive 
only four feet on the safe side of the unhappy driver. 

In the flash of an eye Tate had swung himself out 
of the cab and was helping the man to his feet. Then, 
leaving his fireman in charge of the engine, he ran 
back to see how the stop had affected the train gen- 
erally. He was met by Westinghouse and a number 
of the invited guests, most of whom were rubbing 
their heads or their shins, or pressing their battered 
hats into shape as they limped along. Every one 
was eager to know what the matter was, and the 
pleasure of all at learning that the spasmodic appli- 
cation of the brakes had saved a human life, was a 
salve to the discomfort they had suffered from being 
hurled without warning out of their seats and strewn 
over the floor of their car, which, as the tail of the 
train, had received the worst shock. When they 
had first alighted they had been almost in fighting 
mood ; but as they climbed back the general verdict 



DOUBT CHANGED TO CERTAINTY 71 

was that the air brake was capable of doing what its 
inventor claimed for it. A question was raised 
whether, having witnessed such a demonstration, 
they should reverse the train and return to Pitts- 
burgh ; but the proposal was unanimously voted 
down, and the whole party proceeded to Steuben- 
ville as originally planned. Tate treated them, on 
the way, to several tests which were as satisfying, 
even if not quite so drastic, as the initial one. He 
was as pleased with the apparatus as a child with a 
new toy, and took the utmost pride in showing how 
easily, and with what varied effects, it could be 
handled. 

When the return trip was ended, Westinghouse, 
full of elation over his triumph, shook hands with his 
guests and started for home to tell his wife the news. 
But before he got many steps away from the station 
he paused and reentered it, hastening to the telegraph 
office, where he filed the following despatch to his 
father in Schenectady : 

" My air brake had practical trial today on passen- 
ger train on Panhandle Railroad and proved a great 
success. George." 

He was still sanguine enough to hope that, in the 
face of such a fulfillment of prophecy, the old gentle- 
man would experience a change of heart and volunteer 
an offer to finance the next stage of the business. 
But nothing of the sort was forthcoming. Mr. West- 
inghouse was evidently in no haste to make a princely 
fortune. His only response to the telegram was a 
short and characteristic letter expressing in prudent 



72 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

phraseology his pleasure at reading so favorable a 
report, and remarking that, the brake having al- 
ready "proved a great success," of course there would 
be no further difficulty in procuring all the money 
needed for manufacturing and marketing it. 

The first air brake patent was issued to Westing- 
house on the thirteenth of April, 1869. But mean- 
while he had not been idle. Feeling that he now 
could afford to resign his place as salesman for 
Anderson and Cook and devote his entire time to 
the promotion of his new enterprise, he laid certain 
plans before Baggaley, who gladly joined forces with 
him. The firm with which Baggaley had been con- 
nected was dissolved, and its foundry was converted 
temporarily into a plant for the manufacture of air 
brakes. Some of the leading officers of the Penn- 
sylvania Railroad Company, having recovered from 
their first apathy and being anxious to make up for 
lost time, fitted out an exhibition train to run to 
Altoona, primarily to show the working of the new 
brake to the directors of their corporation, but in- 
cidentally to perform an important service in pub- 
licity. A number of newspaper writers were taken 
along, and in a few days the press everywhere was 
furnished with the story of the invention. 

In Philadelphia, Westinghouse used the same train 
for demonstration purposes, with many prominent 
railroad men from various parts of the country as 
witnesses ; among the rest was the general super- 
intendent of the Chicago and Northwestern system, 
who was so impressed with what he saw that he in- 
vited the inventor to bring the train to Chicago and 




Pi 
o 

E- 
O 

< 

< 
pi 

CQ 



w 
H 



DOUBT CHANGED TO CERTAINTY 73 

exhibit it. This was done, with the effect of intro- 
ducing the brake to the notice of a number of Western 
railroad managers who had not yet seen it work. 
From Chicago Westinghouse was invited to St. Louis, 
where the same thing was repeated. From that 
point the brake made its own way without the ex- 
penditure of any extraordinary effort, and orders 
began to come in from quarters where the inventor 
had but recently seen only the cold shoulder turned 
toward his advances. 

In July, 1869, the Westinghouse Air Brake Com- 
pany was organized under a Pennsylvania charter 
with a capitalization of five hundred thousand dollars. 
In these days when we talk of all considerable enter- 
prises in terms of millions, this seems like a modest 
start, but measured by the standards of half a cen- 
tury ago it was regarded as a very heavy responsi- 
bility for a comparative youth of unknown antece- 
dents to shoulder. The board of directors was wisely 
chosen from among the group of men who were 
familiar with the air brake mechanism and had wit- 
nessed the experimental tests of its efficiency, and 
whose names, for the most part, stood for something 
in the railroad world. These were Robert Pitcairn, 
W. W. Card, Andrew J. Cassatt, Edward H. Williams, 
G. D. Whitcomb, Ralph Baggaley, and, of course, 
Westinghouse, who became first president of the 
corporation. John Caldwell was elected treasurer. 

Everything seemed to be moving along as satis- 
factorily as could be hoped, when the directors, at 
one of their meetings, were treated to a shock. A 
patent expert whom they had engaged to go through 



74 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

all the railway brake literature of this and other coun- 
tries, and ascertain for them just what relation the 
Westinghouse invention bore to previous essays in 
the same field, brought in a report that, about thirty 
years before, essentially the same device had been 
patented in England, but proved so unpractical that 
the patent expired before any use had been made of 
it. The consternation which reigned for a little 
while was dispelled when Westinghouse, by an analy- 
sis of the terms of the British patent, showed that 
the mechanism it covered was unworkable in emer- 
gencies because, before the brake could be applied, 
the locomotive driver was required to turn steam 
into a pump for compressing the air, whereas his own 
apparatus had the air already stored in a compressor 
on the locomotive. 

The discomforting suggestion conveyed in the 
report, however, promptly bore good fruit ; for the 
always lively imagination of young Westinghouse 
was spurred by it to the question: "If the English 
railways are still unequipped with a first-rate air 
brake, why not sell them mine?" As usual with 
him, action was quick to follow thought. The Pitts- 
burgh works had got well under way during the 
winter of 1869 and 1870, and by the autumn of the 
latter year he was ready for his invasion of the old 
world. Although he took his wife with him, it cost 
him something of a wrench to cut loose from the scene 
of his first large activities, for he had recently bought 
a house and lot at Homewood, on the eastern edge 
of the city, christened the little estate "Solitude", 
and settled down to his first real experience as lord 



DOUBT CHANGED TO CERTAINTY 75 

of a domestic establishment. But if he were made a 
trifle homesick by the prospect of leaving everything 
on which he had fixed his heart's desire on this side 
of the water, he felt more so when he reached the 
other side and found himself in the chilliest atmos- 
phere he had ever encountered. 



CHAPTER VI 
"Nothing Succeeds Like Success" 

Americans who know England and the English 
only on the hospitable side they present to our coun- 
try and its people today will have some difficulty in 
appreciating the situation existing when George 
Westinghouse made his first entry into London. 
Up to that time there had not been established any 
of the reciprocity of cordial sentiment which has 
characterized the intercourse of the two nations dur- 
ing the last twenty years. On our part, we were 
still cherishing the hostile traditions of 1776 and 1812, 
and resentful memories of the privateering episodes 
of the early '6o's ; on theirs, there was a sense of 
rancor at our encouragement, for political purposes, 
of Irish insurgency and almost everything else that 
was notoriously anti-English. Moreover, in those 
days, whatever was associated with American rail- 
roading was under more or less suspicion in England, 
owing to several well-advertised misfortunes suffered 
by English investors in wildcat projects here. The 
era of corporate inflation opened by our Civil War, 
the launching of the first crude schemes for trans- 
continental rail routes, the abuse of the Erie system 
as a football of professional stock gamblers, and the 
struggle continually going on between rival specu- 




Ph 



u 



"NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS" 77 

lative rings for the control of a few valuable properties 
for questionable purposes had combined to give the 
more conservative element in English business circles 
a notion of American affairs generally as disagreeable 
as it was unjust. 

In view of these conditions, it appeared to West- 
inghouse a wise precaution to ascertain the feeling 
of the scientific periodicals toward such an invention 
as his before attempting to place it in the hands of 
any of the carrying companies. He made overtures 
in one or two quarters where, as soon as he announced 
his nationality, he met with a repulse. The last 
journal he approached was Engineering, a weekly 
which he had seen now and then at home, where its 
original editor, Zerah Colburn, was well known. 
Two editors had since succeeded Mr. Colburn — 
Messrs. W. H. Maw and J. Dredge. It so happened 
that when he made his first call Mr. Maw was out 
of the office, and he was received by Mr. Dredge, 
who seemed, in spite of the customary English re- 
serve, to take an instant liking to him. In a few 
minutes Westinghouse was deep in his exposition of 
his air brake. Dredge listened curiously, but gave 
him no immediate sign of encouragement. At the 
close of their talk, Westinghouse left with the editor 
a copy of his patent, with some additional drawings 
and a popular description prepared by himself. 
Mr. Dredge consented to examine the documents 
carefully as soon as he could command the necessary 
time, and, if he found them satisfactory, to publish 
his impressions. 

"But I warn you, Mr. Westinghouse," he said 



78 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

good-naturedly, as he fastened the folio and laid it 
among his more important papers, "you have put 
your head into the lion's mouth, and will have no 
one but yourself to blame if it is bitten off." 

"I'll take my chances," laughed Westinghouse. 
"Of course, it makes a world of difference if you know 
the habits of your lion." 

The whimsical challenge, though taken up so 
blithely on the spot, recurred to the inventor's mind 
several times between this interview and the appear- 
ance of the next issue of Engineering, through which 
he looked in vain for any comment on his brake. 
Every time he thought of it, it had taken on a little 
more serious significance, till he had begun to wonder 
whether he might not, after all, have made a mistake 
in coming to a periodical of so high standing before 
making a practical test of his brake somewhere in 
Great Britain. The notion was strengthened when, 
after a considerable interval, he called upon Mr. 
Dredge again, to inquire what prospect there was of 
an article at an early date. The editor handed him 
a sheet of proof to read, with the remark : "I have 
been favorably impressed with your brake, from the 
literature about it which you left me. I am keeping 
that for future use if an occasion offers itself. Just 
now, however, the thing for you to do is to place your 
brake on one of our railways and give a public ex- 
hibition of its working. The readers of Engineering 
will take far more interest in a statement of what we 
have seen with our own eyes than in any suggestion 
we might print, founded on nothing more substantial 
than your patent and claims." 



"NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS" 79 

"My brake," argued Westinghouse, "is already 
in constant use on several American roads." 

"Doubtless," assented Dredge; "and yet you 
will appreciate the fact that our people are a bit skep- 
tical about the operations of American railways un- 
less they have evidence of a very convincing char- 
acter." 

"What do you wish? Shall I give you a list of 
the roads in the United States which use my brake, 
and let you write to the managers and learn for your- 
self whether my pretensions are justified?" 

"That's not a bad idea. Incidentally, however, 
I have put into your hands the rough draft of some- 
thing I shall say in Engineering apropos of the gen- 
eral subject of air brakes. If your invention proves 
to be all that you say it is, this demand of mine will 
make a very good form of introduction for what I 
may wish to write later. Mind you, I am not saying 
that all you claim may not be absolutely well founded. 
I merely intend to take reasonable means of assuring 
myself." 

Westinghouse withdrew, bearing with him Dredge's 
proof sheet, which he read with interest at the first 
opportunity. It was a broad plea for a better brake 
than any then in use on British railways, and it gave 
a catalogue of the qualities which the editor con- 
sidered essential to a satisfactory continuous braking 
system for trains, about as follows : 

First, the brakes must be applicable with equal 
facility by either the locomotive-driver or the guards 
who might be in various parts of a train ; 

Second, the act of applying the brakes must call 



80 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

for only a slight exertion on the part of the person 
performing it ; 

Third, the application must be capable of either 
instantaneous or gradual performance, according to 
the peculiar character of the exigency ; 

Fourth, if a part of the train breaks loose from the 
rest, the brakes must come automatically into play ; 

Fifth, the system must permit carriages, whether 
fitted with the brakes or not, to be attached to, or 
detached from, the train ; 

Sixth, when a train is divided, the brakes on every 
division must be capable of working independently ; 

Seventh, the failure of the brake apparatus on one 
or more carriages must not interfere with the action 
of the brakes on the rest of the train ; 

Eighth, the brake mechanism must be of very 
simple character, easy to maintain, and not liable to 
derangement by rough use, or disuse and neglect. 

At a first reading, these conditions struck Westing- 
house as rather severe, but he was cheerfulness itself 
when next he called upon Dredge and offered to 
return the borrowed proof. 

"Oh, keep it, if it interests you," said the editor, 
with a wave of the hand. "Are you prepared now 
to tell me that your brake meets all my require- 
ments?" 

"By no means," answered Westinghouse. "But 
it is still in its infancy, and I am quite certain that 
before I get through with it you will have no fault 
to find with its operation." 

"You are still working on it?" 

"I don't suppose I shall ever stop." 

"By Jove!" Dredge brought his flat palm down 
upon a pile of papers before him. "You speak like 



"NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS" 81 

a man of spirit. I like that. Although you are an 
inventor, you're not blinded by your own genius." 

"No, I can still see well enough to discover the 
faults in your catalogue of requisites." 

"For example — ?" the editor was all attention. 

"For a first criticism, you are indiscriminate. You 
apparently recognize no distinction between the 
needs of a train making long runs and one that has 
a short route and stops every few minutes — what 
we call in America an 'accommodation.' Don't you 
see that the chances are all against having to divide a 
train, attach and detach cars, and so forth where the 
stations are only eight or ten miles apart at most ? " 

"That is a fair criticism as far as it goes." Dredge 
made a few notes in pencil on a memorandum sheet. 
"What next?" 

"Why, perhaps I should take an exception also 
to your fourth demand, when applied to local trains. 
With fast running, there is always the liability that 
a coupling may break under the strain, and your 
train be cut in two ; whereas, at any speed ever 
reached between stations almost within gunshot of 
each other, the possibility of such an accident is 
reduced to a minimum." 

"Nevertheless, you admit that it exists?" 

"Of course. But don't you see that the forward 
fragment of your train would reach the next station 
so soon that there would really be no danger to life 
or property before the missing part could be picked 
up and reattached?" 

"There it is! You Americans are always calcu- 
lating probabilities — taking chances." 



82 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

"And you Britishers go to the other extreme, 
which is just as bad, or worse. I wonder you ever 
dare lay out a program for tomorrow; who knows 
that it will come?" 

Dredge, so far from being nettled by the retort, 
chuckled audibly. 

"Very well, Young America, I've made a note of 
your criticisms and will give them due consideration. 
I still stand by my first proposition, however, that 
Engineering had better wait until you have placed 
your brake on an experimental train in this country, 
as you did at the start in the United States. Then, 
whatever we print will have weight." 

There being nothing left to discuss, Westinghouse 
took his leave, and the next morning entered upon a 
systematic campaign among the railway companies. 
He had brought with him, from men of standing in 
the transportation business in America, letters of 
introduction to some of their English brethren ; but 
in spite of such an armament he found it no easy 
matter to pierce the wall of form and ceremony with 
which these magnates had surrounded themselves. 
As illustrative of the common attitude, he used to 
enjoy, later in life, telling the story of his visit to the 
managing director of one great railway, whom he 
asked, by way of opening conversation, whether he 
had read a little pamphlet that had been mailed him 
a few days before, descriptive of the new brake. 

"No," was the frigid response. "I receive many 
pamphlets in my mail, but I rarely read them." 

"Neither do I," said Westinghouse; "most of 
them would not pay me for my time. But as this 



"NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS" 83 

one contains information about a new thing in your 
special field — " 

"So many new things," interrupted the manager, 
"are worthless, that as a rule they have ceased to 
interest me." 

"Well, here is one which will, I am sure." West- 
inghouse drew a duplicate from his pocket. "With 
your permission, I will give you a brief abstract of 
its contents." And he plunged, as he had so often 
while his invention was still untried, into a recitation 
of its points of especial merit, concluding his speech 
with an account of the actual tests it had met so 
creditably on American railroads. At the close of 
his exposition he asked permission to equip a loco- 
motive, tender and car on this gentleman's road, and 
prove beyond question what the apparatus could do. 

"Let you use our property for such a purpose?" 
ejaculated the astounded manager. "I really could 
not think of it for a moment ! " 

"But I am ready to attach my apparatus at my 
own expense," pleaded the visitor. 

"Oh, quite so, quite so; I take that for granted. 
It makes no difference, however. We have not a 
locomotive, a tender or a carriage to spare for your 
experiments." 

"Then could I not hire the necessary vehicles, 
equip them with my brake, and give an exhibition 
in the presence of any number of gentlemen you care 
to invite?" 

"No, no. You positively must take my refusal 
as final. In the plainest terms, we do not wish to 
rent any of our rolling stock for you to use in your 



84 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

demonstration." By this time the railroad man's 
manner was very impatient, and his face was grow- 
ing purple. In spite of so threatening a symptom 
the inventor persisted. 

''Possibly you will consent, then, to sell me a train ? 
All I really need is a locomotive, a tender and four 
passenger coaches. What is your price for such an 
outfit over here?" 

If this irrepressible young Yankee had struck him 
with a bludgeon, the Englishman could hardly have 
appeared more dazed. It took him a full minute to 
realize what he had heard, and to make sure that his 
visitor was in earnest, before he answered : 

"You will have to give me a little time to consider 
that question. It is too extraordinary to be settled 
in an instant. I can probably give you an answer 
in about a week. But I assume you understand 
that, even if we consent to sell you a train, such a 
concession would not include permission to run over 
our tracks with your machinery. We must stop 
short of that, you know." 

Rising with a bow which announced as distinctly 
as words that the interview was at an end, the man 
of fifty dismissed the youth of twenty-five quite 
without a thought that the next time they met for a 
negotiation the man would be making the bid and 
the youth taking time to consider it. 

But this is what happened, though it was a good 
while in coming. In March, 1872, the London and 
North-Western Railway Company gave Westing- 
house permission to exhibit his brake on its line be- 
tween Stafford and Crewe, and, about the same time, 



"NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS" 85 

he was allowed to equip a train of twelve passenger 
coaches and two freight cars for a series of tests on 
the Caledonian Railway between Glasgow and 
Wemyss Bay. In each instance the demonstration 
was successful. A little later several trials were made 
on the South-Eastern Railway with a train consisting 
of a locomotive, tender, and six cars, and the witnesses 
were free with their praise of the way the apparatus 
acted. Still, neither these corporations, nor any 
others whose representatives were present at the 
tests, were willing to prove their satisfaction at once 
by formally adopting the Westinghouse brake as 
their standard. The first real step forward was taken 
by the Metropolitan District Railway in London in 
January, 1873. Eighteen months afterward the 
British Board of Trade conducted a series of brake 
trials in which chain, hydraulic, and vacuum brakes 
competed with the air brake. In 1875 another series 
of tests was made under the auspices of the British 
Railways Accident Commission. In all these the 
Westinghouse proved itself the most efficient con- 
tinuous brake on the market. Everybody except 
the vacuum brake manufacturers seemed willing to 
concede its superiority, but many of the railroad 
managers complained that it was too expensive. 
This brought Engineering again to the fore with 
evidence gathered from a host of American experts 
that the original cost of equipping their lines with 
Westinghouse brakes was more than made up by 
the saving on repairs. 

At first Westinghouse had fancied that the reluc- 
tance manifested in England to accepting his brake 



86 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

outright might be due to the local railways having 
already some sufficiently good apparatus of which he 
had not learned. To see for himself the actual con- 
ditions, he engaged a man familiar with local railway 
operations to travel with him throughout Great 
Britain. Speaking afterward of these trips he said : 
"I found that there were no continuous brakes in 
use except on a few trains on the London and North- 
Western and the North London railways. These 
were fitted with Clark's chain brakes, operated by a 
guard from the brake van, and not connected or at- 
tached to the locomotive. I failed to find a single 
continuous brake in which power was communicated 
throughout the train through lines of pipe, except 
what was known as Barker's hydraulic system, which 
was then in process of trial. There never had been 
any compressed air brakes in successful operation in 
England. The London, Chatham, and Dover Rail- 
way had tried one on a train running between the 
Crystal Palace and Victoria station, but had aban- 
doned it as unsatisfactory ; and the locomotive 
superintendent of the Great Northern Railway had 
had some sort of experience -with one which convinced 
him that the underlying principle was impracticable, 
so that for a long time I could not obtain even a 
hearing in that quarter. With these exceptions I 
could find no evidence that air brakes of any kind 
had ever even been tried." 

Not all the period covered by this outline was 
passed continuously in England. Between 187 1 
and 1 881 Westinghouse crossed the ocean repeatedly, 
keeping thus in close touch with his American com- 



"NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS" 87 

pany. He also made several fruitful visits to the 
Continental capitals, where the air brake met with a 
much warmer reception than among English railway- 
managers. In Belgium, for example, a royal com- 
mission of engineers, after a thorough comparison 
of his brake with all others which had been brought 
to their attention, adopted it as the standard equip- 
ment for the state railways ; and from other sources 
there gradually came limited orders which, though 
obviously only experimental, gave him a feeling that 
his invention was making its way in the old world in 
spite of its apparently unpromising start. To fa- 
cilitate the handling of his European business, he 
organized a British corporation and established a 
large plant for the manufacture of the brake, with 
executive offices in London. His most formidable 
competitor was a vacuum brake company ; and it 
is significant of the conservatism bred into the flesh 
and bone of even the most intelligent class of English- 
men that, though the rest of the world has for the 
most part adopted the air brake as by far the most 
satisfactory device yet invented, many of the British 
railroads are still committed to the vacuum brake 
and resist all movements for a change. 

Meanwhile, instead of resenting criticisms which 
often were hard to bear, Westinghouse had turned 
them to profit by studying out the improvements 
they called for in one and another feature, culminat- 
ing in the invention of the now familiar automatic 
brake, which he patented in 1872, and which fulfilled 
in every respect the ideal requirements proposed 
by Mr. Dredge. The original non-automatic or 



88 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

"straight-air" brake had consisted of a very simple 
steam-actuated air pump placed on the side of the 
locomotive, and a reservoir in which the compressed 
air could be stored. A pipe line from the reservoir 
was carried through the length of the train, connec- 
tions between vehicles being made by means of hose 
and couplings. Every vehicle was provided with a 
simple cast-iron cylinder, the piston rod of which 
was connected with the brake rigging in such a way 
that when the air was admitted to the cylinder the 
piston was forced out, and the brakes were thereby 
applied. In the engineer's cab there was placed in 
the pipe line a three-way cock, by means of which 
compressed air could be admitted to the pipe line 
and thus to the cylinder on every car; or the air 
already in the cylinders and pipe line could be dis- 
charged to the atmosphere, releasing the brakes. 

Excellent as this apparatus was by comparison 
with any predecessor in the same line, it lacked 
certain desirable features and was liable to prove 
inoperative in some emergency when it would be 
most needed, from the bursting of the hose under 
pressure, the parting of the train or other rupture of 
the system. In order to obviate such perilous pos- 
sibilities, Westinghouse brought out what is now 
known as the automatic brake. Its essential differ- 
ence from the "straight-air" brake consisted in the 
installation of supplementary or auxiliary reservoirs 
for the storage of compressed air on the cars in addi- 
tion to the main reservoir on the locomotive ; thus 
every vehicle carried its own source of power, and 
the employment of an ingenious valve mechanism 



"NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS" 89 

to cause the application of the brake by the reduction 
of air pressure in the train-pipe — no matter whether 
the reduction were made intentionally or by accident 
— so that a ruptured hose or a serious air leakage 
from whatever source would stop the train. This 
device was called a "triple valve", because of its 
threefold function of applying a brake, releasing it, 
and charging its auxiliary reservoir. As a product 
of pure invention it is probable that the automatic 
brake system represented in the highest degree West- 
inghouse's capacity as an inventor. 

It was not merely in large matters that Westing- 
house found his progress impeded by insular preju- 
dice during his early British campaign, but in lesser 
details as well. In a speech he made in London in 
1903 before a distinguished body of scientific men, 
he was able to take a laughing glance backward at 
these annoyances, time having vindicated his fore- 
sight. 

"I came here first," said he, "about thirty years 
ago, and for ten years I was here half my time. At 
that time it was very difficult to get anything done 
in England, as I could get no one to believe in any- 
thing I proposed. I wanted in those early days to 
try an iron brake shoe, because, on account of the 
rapid wear, we could not keep the wooden shoes 
adjusted. I had to beg and plead to be permitted 
to put a set of metal brake shoes on one tender of 
the Caledonian Railway. Finally I succeeded. Of 
course, you all know that nowadays all the railway 
brake shoes or blocks are made of cast iron or other 
metal and are used upon all the wheels of the train." 



90 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

By the fall of 1881 the Westinghouse automatic 
air brake was in use on over 3164 locomotives and 
17,290 cars in various foreign countries, ranging from 
over 1087 locomotives and 7719 cars in Great Britain, 
and 14 1 6 locomotives and 7193 cars in France, down 
to one locomotive and six cars in Sweden. In the 
United States, 3435 locomotives and 12,790 cars 
were equipped with it. Of the fourteen British rail- 
ways employing it, the largest patrons were the 
North-Eastern, the London, Brighton, and South 
Coast, the Great Eastern, the North British, the 
Caledonian, and the Glasgow and South-Western 
systems. The statistics, here given, moreover, do 
not include the straight-air brakes, of which a very 
large number were still in use on railways which had 
bought them before the automatic brake came into 
general notice. As a fitting conclusion to the cata- 
logue of ten years' achievements, Europe was dotted 
with manufacturing establishments where hundreds 
of mechanics were busy producing Westinghouse 
brake apparatus, with a combined capacity for 
equipping an average of three hundred locomotives 
and twelve hundred cars every month. And all 
this had been evolved from the brain and hand of 
an American just turned thirty-five, who, obliged 
to hew his own way without the aid of power- 
ful allies, had by sheer energy and pluck already 
raised himself from obscurity to eminence and a 
steadily improving bank account. 



CHAPTER VII 
The Battle of the Brakes 

Up to 1880 the use of power brakes was confined 
wholly to passenger service; but some railroads 
in the mountainous regions of the West had grades 
so steep as to render the conduct of their freight 
traffic very hazardous, and this led to their adopt- 
ing presently a straight-air brake, and later an auto- 
matic brake specially designed for their use. At 
that time the freight trains on lines west of the Mis- 
souri River were comparatively short, and there 
was little interchange of cars between them, so that 
every road used the equipment best suited to its 
needs, practically without reference to the equipment 
of its neighbors. In the East, however, the length 
of the trains was continually on the increase, and 
the interchange of cars was so general that the intro- 
duction of power brakes for freight traffic had not 
yet been attempted. Meanwhile, as trains grew 
longer and loads heavier, accidents to human life, 
goods in transit, and rolling stock occurred with 
more and more frequency, emphasizing the need of 
some kind of automatic coupling to replace the old 
link and pin, the substitution of power brakes for 
hand brakes, and the establishment of a uniform 



92 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

standard of mechanisms in both instances, so that 
a car of any one line could be inserted in a train of 
any other and be operated under the same control. 
An efficient coupler was finally developed and 
adopted, but the determination of a standard power 
brake presented greater difficulties. There were 
several inventions in the field, and the Master Car 
Builders' Association decided to clear the situation 
by designating a committee to conduct a series of 
competitive tests between them at Burlington, 
Iowa. The first meet was fixed for the spring of 
1886, and, although every brake manufacturer in 
the country was invited to take part with a train 
of fifty cars fitted with his own apparatus, this 
trial was to all intents an elimination contest, since 
only the automatic air and the vacuum brakes made 
a showing on which any reasonable hope could be 
based. The committee reported that the opera- 
tion of the automatic air brake met the ordinary 
requirements of service work, but that its action 
was unsatisfactory in emergencies because of the 
slow passage of the power from the front to the 
rear of a long train. With the sudden stoppage 
from low speeds of such a train, by the application 
of the brakes with full force, the cars at the front 
end would come to an almost instant standstill, 
those further back banging successively into them 
till the influence exerted from the locomotive had 
reached the last car. Animals in the cattle cars 
were liable to be wounded or killed by being hurled 
into heaps, the forward end of a heavy car might 
smash the rear end of a light one and ruin every- 



THE BATTLE OF THE BRAKES 93 

thing fragile carried therein, and train hands 
were in danger of being thrown into the spaces 
between cars and crushed to death or permanently 
crippled. 

Another trial was accordingly set for the spring 
of the following year, at the same place. Between 
the two trials Westinghouse bent his entire thought 
upon studying out a means of increasing the emer- 
gency speed of action of his brake in the parts of the 
train furthest from the locomotive, and this he 
accomplished. 

Six competitors took part in the fresh test. One 
brake was operated by electricity alone ; a second 
by compressed air alone ; a third by electricity 
and a vacuum ; while Westinghouse and one other 
manufacturer contributed brakes combining com- 
pressed air and electricity. The electric appliances 
used by Westinghouse were very simple, and not 
required on every car ; two or three of them, in- 
serted between the hose couplings in various parts 
of a long train, sufficed to produce the desired results. 
The arrangement was such that when the brakes 
were set electrically the pneumatic application was 
made also, and in the event of an electrical failure 
the train would still be stopped pneumatically ; 
whereas the other electrically-operated brakes had 
complicated and delicate mechanisms on every car, 
and if the electric operation failed the engineer lost 
control of the train. The improvements Westing- 
house had recently made in the triple valve conveyed 
the braking force from the locomotive to the last 
car on a fifty-car freight train more than twice as 



94 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

quickly as this had ever been done before ; yet the 
lapse of time between the first and final applications 
was still distinctly measurable, and the enhanced 
efficiency of the individual brakes increased rather 
than lessened the shock evil. 

In the trials of 1887 an instrument called a slide- 
ometer was used to determine the relative violence 
of the shocks produced by sudden stopping under 
various conditions. It consisted of a wooden trough, 
fourteen feet long by six inches wide, made of clear 
white pine smoothly planed. This was screwed 
fast to the center of the rear car, and in it would 
slide, in either direction, a wrought iron disc weigh- 
ing a trifle more than sixteen pounds. Crude as 
the device appeared, it answered its purpose well. 
Shocks in the ordinary handling of trains with slack 
couplings, over sags or hogbacks, or working in 
yards, would move the disc from two to eight inches ; 
twelve inches indicated a shock sufficient to injure 
live stock and equipment ; while repeated blows 
registering from twelve to twenty inches would 
start the loads at the rear of the train through the 
ends of the cars. It was soon evident that not all 
the improvement yet made in the automatic air 
brake had carried it past the danger point, as the 
sudden stoppage of a train moving at a speed of 
twenty miles an hour, under some conditions, caused 
the disc to slide more than one hundred and twenty 
inches ; only when electricity was employed to oper- 
ate the air valves were the results satisfactory. 
The committee's report, therefore, was generally 
favorable to a brake operated by air, having valves 



THE BATTLE OF THE BRAKES 95 

actuated by electricity — practically a verdict against 
brakes operated by air alone. 

Among the technically trained observers who 
attended these trials, probably the only one who 
did not read in this turn of affairs an end to the 
dominance of Westinghouse in his special field was 
Westinghouse himself. To a friend who attempted 
to say something comforting, he turned a face which, 
though serious, was entirely cheerful. 

"What are you going to do now?" asked the 
friend. 

"What I have left undone hitherto," he answered 
— "perfect my air brake." 

To this task he addressed his attention with the 
same industry that had characterized his previous 
undertakings. He felt that the electric factor must 
be eliminated if possible, because of the perils of 
depending upon an agency so liable to accident from 
uncontrollable conditions. As the improved triple 
valve had proved that it was based on a correct 
principle, he devoted his first thought to various 
accessories, of which the details of construction in 
any wise influenced the flow of air in the apparatus. 
The ports of the triple valve were also enlarged, and 
this, with succeeding modifications of kindred na- 
ture, enabled him, within three months after the 
apparent collapse of his supremacy, to produce the 
device now known as the quick-acting brake, which 
completely reversed the verdict just reached. Occa- 
sional hints would filter through the engineering 
press that there would soon be some important 
news to record, but not the most imaginative writer 



96 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

would have ventured a guess at what actually hap- 
pened ; for, though the final product was still the 
Westinghouse brake already known all over the 
world, it had been reorganized by such changes as 
reduced the time of the serial action of the brakes 
on a fifty-car freight train to a little more than two 
seconds, and enabled the locomotive driver to stop 
the train, while speeding at forty miles an hour 
down a steep grade, in less than half its own length, 
not only without a sensible shock, but with not 
even the slightest disturbance of the slideometer ! 

An illuminating incident occurred during this 
last test at Burlington. The performance of elec- 
trically-operated brakes had been so brilliant that 
the local atmosphere was highly charged with elec- 
tric sentiment as related to the brake question. It 
happened that, in the midst of the tests, one of 
the business cars of the Burlington road, with sev- 
eral officers of the company aboard, anchored for 
a night on the trial field. These gentlemen were, 
of course, informed of the latest developments, 
and when Westinghouse and some of his associates 
made a social call on them, the conversation naturally 
turned on the subject of greatest interest. Plainly 
the visitors believed that the days of the automatic 
air brake were numbered, and they expressed this 
idea in sympathetic terms, doubtless with a view 
of letting Westinghouse down gently. He, how- 
ever, combated the notion that electricity, with 
its uncertainty of action, could safely be depended 
upon in a matter so vital as the braking of a train ; 
the results obtained in the tests, he admitted, were 



THE BATTLE OF THE BRAKES 97 

interesting as experiments, but he regarded the 
devices used as impracticable in the then existing 
state of the braking and electrical arts. He was 
deep in this phase of the discussion when one of 
his hosts, thinking to order refreshments, pushed 
an electric button for the steward. There was no 
response, the bell refusing to ring. Instantly West- 
inghouse forced home his argument, declaring that 
the failure of the bell illustrated the untrustwor- 
thiness of electricity as a dependence in emergencies ; 
if it could not be relied on to summon a waiter, how 
could we afford to confide to it the braking of a 
heavy train ! 1 

The confidence Westinghouse had expressed to 
his friend at the close of the public trials had not 
been mere vaunting ; in the very hour when the 
shadows of defeat seemed closing in about him he 
had seen the point of weakness in his mechanism 
as it stood, and forecast a possible remedy. But 
in spite of all his knowledge and his faith, it was a 

1 As a matter of record it should be said that the brake which depended 
wholly upon electric operation of the air valves, after a splendid showing 
at Burlington, failed entirely in its last attempt to make a stop ; the acci- 
dent was due to the rupture of a conducting wire, and the train was brought 
to a standstill by gravity. The circumstances connected with the elec- 
trical phase of the Burlington trials well exemplified the foresight of West- 
inghouse in dealing with new problems. He was the original inventor of 
electro-pneumatic brakes, and presented at Burlington a simple method 
of providing electric actuation of the air valves ; but, as we have seen, he 
perfectly realized the great practical difficulties which would be encoun- 
tered in an attempt to use electricity as it would have to be employed in 
brake service, and felt sure that the electric art had not yet reached a 
stage of development which would justify its adoption for that purpose. 
He lived, however, to witness its successful application on subway trains 
in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, the most critical and complex 
system of passenger transportation in the world. 



98 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

giant's job to which he laid his hand. The cars 
on which the trials of 1886 and 1887 had been made 
were the property of his company; and he pro- 
ceeded to arrange with the Chicago, Burlington, and 
Quincy Railroad management for the use of such 
locomotives and tracks as would enable him to 
experiment under the same conditions and on the 
same ground as those of the public trials. All the 
resources and all the employees available he kept 
at work day and night without cessation ; the ma- 
terials required from time to time, in every instance 
covering more than a carload, he ordered shipped 
from Pittsburgh to Burlington by express instead of 
freight, so that no time should be lost ; and the 
experimental train of fifty cars had to be refitted, 
from stem to stern, not less than three times before 
he was satisfied with its work. But when, toward 
the close of September, the hindmost brake on the 
train clutched its wheel substantially the instant 
after the engineer's movement of his valve, his 
triumph made up for all the trouble he had under- j 
gone ; for the last ground of criticism against the 
use of compressed air unaided by electricity in the 
operation of power brakes on long freight trains 
was disposed of. 

Nor does the story end here. As the experiments 
outlined above had been wholly unofficial, and 
hence could not be formally authenticated by the 
committee of the Master Car Builders' Association, 
it was feared that inaccurate accounts might leak 
out and bias the judgment of interested parties. 
The Westinghouse Air Brake Company therefore 



THE BATTLE OF THE BRAKES 99 

decided to repeat the Burlington experiments in a 
number of important railroad centers like St. Paul, 
Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Buffalo, 
Albany, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Wash- 
ington, and Pittsburgh. To do this it was necessary 
to run the entire train of fifty cars from point to 
point, requiring two engines and in a few instances 
three, and involving operation under all the handicaps 
incidental to regular traffic. The fact that the 
train was nearly a half-mile long added to its diffi- 
culties, as it had to be conveyed over many roads 
the grades of which limited the length of trains to 
a much smaller number of cars. 

One of the experiments which demonstrated 
the effectiveness of the latest improvements was 
dramatically interesting. With a fifty-car train 
at rest, observers were stationed at its rear end, 
and at a prearranged signal the engineer applied 
the brakes on the locomotive and blew the whistle 
at the same instant ; and the sound of the whistle 
and the noise of the application of the brakes on 
the fiftieth car, about two thousand feet away, 
were practically simultaneous, showing that the 
transmission of power through the train was approxi- 
mately at the speed of a sound wave. 

Wherever a demonstration was made, invitations 
were extended to all local railroad men and others 
interested, and nearly every one was accepted. 
The final exhibition was at Pittsburgh in November, 
and was the concluding act in a development of the 
art of train braking carried on for a year at a total 
expense of probably not less than two hundred 



ioo GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

thousand dollars. The result obtained at so heavy 
a cost brought in immediately, however, large orders 
for the new brakes. The great trunk lines like the 
New York Central and Pennsylvania systems, adopt- 
ing the quick-action brake as their standard, applied 
it not only to all the new cars they built, but also 
to their old cars that required general repairs. 

The Master Car Builders' Association proceed- 
ings of 1888 included a report of its committee on 
freight-train brakes to this effect : 

In our report to the Convention last year the main 
conclusion we arrived at was that the best type of 
brake for freight service was one operated by air, 
and in which the valves were actuated by electricity. 
Since that time your committee has not made any 
further trial of brakes, but the aspect of the ques- 
tion has been much changed by the remarkable 
results achieved in non-official trials which have 
taken place in various parts of the country, and 
have been witnessed by many of the members of 
this association. These trials show that there is 
now a brake on the market which can be relied on 
as efficient in any condition of freight service. The 
present position of the freight-train brake is briefly 
as follows : 

"First. Brakes can be, practically speaking, 
simultaneously applied without electricity through- 
out a train of fifty freight cars. 

"Second. Other inventors are working at the 
problem of making an air brake which will be rapid 
in action and suitable for service on freight trains. 
We also understand that inventors are working 
at buffer and electric friction brakes, but we have 
no reason to hope that brakes upon these principles 
can successfully compete with air brakes." 



THE BATTLE OF THE BRAKES 101 

In view of these conditions, your committee 
does not recommend the adoption of any particular 
brake, but considers that a freight train brake 
should fulfill the following conditions : 

"First. It shall work with air of seventy pounds 
pressure. A reduction of eight pounds shall set 
the brakes lightly, and a restoration of pressure 
shall release the brakes. 

"Second. It shall work without shock on a 
train of fifty cars. 

"Third. It shall stop a train of fifty empty freight 
cars when running at twenty miles per hour within 
two hundred feet on a level. 

"Fourth. When tried on a train of fifty cars it 
shall maintain an even speed of fifteen miles an hour 
down a grade of fifty-three feet per mile without 
variation of more than five miles per hour above or 
below that speed at any time during the descent. 

"Fifth. The brakes shall be capable of being 
applied, released, and graduated on the whole train 
by the engineer, without any assistance from the 
brakemen or conductor. 

"Sixth. The hose coupling shall couple with the 
present Westinghouse coupling." 

That ended what has been picturesquely styled 
"the battle of the brakes," for, though it was lit- 
erally true that the report contained the recommenda- 
tion of no particular brake by name, its list of condi- 
tions which the ideal brake must meet could be ful- 
filled by no invention except Westinghouse's. The 
committee was discharged with the thanks of the 
Association after three years of arduous and pains- 
taking investigation, of which by no means the 
least important outcome was an effective stirring 
of the public conscience on the subject of saving 



102 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

the lives and limbs of trainmen. Before the Bur- 
lington trials the subject of legislation making com- 
pulsory the use of power brakes on freight trains, 
though agitated by several benevolent persons 
and societies, had received but scant practical 
consideration, probably because it would have been 
futile to attempt to compel the use of a device not 
yet invented. Since the introduction of the quick- 
action brake, however, Congress has imposed the 
use of power brakes on all railways engaged in in- 
terstate commerce. 

It must not be assumed that either his extraordi- 
nary activity in building up his air-brake industry 
in this country, or his frequent visits to Europe, 
had driven all other topics out of the mind of young 
Westinghouse. As early as 1875, during a stay 
in England, his curiosity was excited by some 
experiments in progress there with devices for rail- 
road switching and signaling. It does not appear 
that at that time he undertook any improvements 
on the apparatus then under test ; but his growing 
interest in the subject was preparing to bear prac- 
tical fruit later, for we find him looking into the 
state of the art in the United States, and presently 
purchasing enough stock to give him control of the 
Interlocking Switch and Signal Company of Harris- 
burg, Pennsylvania, which owned a number of 
highly important patents on switching devices such 
as are used in steering a multitude of trains into 
and out of a great terminal station without confu- 
sion. His next move was to turn over his control 
of the company, together with a similar control 



THE BATTLE OF THE BRAKES 103 

he had acquired in the management of a Massachu- 
setts company manufacturing electric signal appa- 
ratus, to a corporation styled the Union Switch 
and Signal Company, originally chartered in Con- 
necticut but later in Pennsylvania. The Massa- 
chusetts member of the combination, it may be 
remarked in passing, was the first to employ the 
method of controlling signals by using the rails as 
electric conductors on the closed circuit principle — 
probably the most important single contribution 
to the art of signaling. 

Meanwhile the busy mind of Westinghouse had 
been working out sundry details which took pal- 
pable form in a series of patents covering hydro- 
pneumatic and electro-pneumatic signaling — obvi- 
ously the outgrowth of the familiarity gained with 
the properties and potentialities of compressed air 
during his long study of his braking problems. 
The first of these was issued on February 1, 1881, 
and between then and 1891 there were fifteen issues 
in his name. He also was a liberal buyer of other 
men's patents which in his judgment possessed 
essential merit. His first experimental mechanisms 
seem to have been hydro-pneumatic, but soon these 
were discarded in favor of electro-pneumatic devices, 
which have been tersely described by a distinguished 
engineer as "using compressed air for the heavy 
work, and electricity to pull the trigger." 

A block system of safety signals was by no means 
a new idea at the time Westinghouse entered the 
field. Leading railways had for many years been 
dividing their trackage into sections or blocks from 



104 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

a half-mile to four miles in length, and establishing 
at every junction of two blocks a signal station with 
a man in charge. This man would set a danger 
signal against coming trains until the man at the 
station next ahead telegraphed him that the track 
between them was clear of trains ; then he would 
set an "all right" signal, and engineers were for- 
bidden to pass from one block to another till this 
signal appeared. The arrangement was admirable 
as far as it went ; but, as is always the case where 
mechanisms require human intelligence and mus- 
cular effort to manage them, it involved a margin 
of uncertainty. A watchman on night duty might 
drop asleep, or one on day duty might be suddenly 
overcome with illness, or any of a dozen conceivable 
mishaps might break the human link in the chain 
of operation and open the way for disaster. It was 
therefore deemed desirable to substitute automatic 
for human energy wherever practicable. In the 
electro-pneumatic system, as developed since West- 
inghouse entered the field, electricity has been 
made to do the watching and compressed air the 
signaling. 

The chief and fundamental advantage of the auto- 
matic electric system over that into which a human 
agency must enter, is that, if a switch is turned or 
a rail broken, the continuity of the rails on that 
block, which carry the electric current that operates 
the signals, is broken, and the danger signal is set 
automatically. Many other ingenious devices have 
been put forth by this company, with the same 
electro-pneumatic cooperation for a basis, including 



THE BATTLE OF THE BRAKES ros 

one that automatically sets the brakes if a train 
passes a danger signal unheeded. 

In the department of railroading we have just 
been considering, not less than in that to which he 
first addressed himself, the paramount object West- 
inghouse always held in view was to obtain the 
utmost utility in service compatible with the mini- 
mum peril to life and limb. 



CHAPTER VIII 
Opening a Mine of Gaseous Wealth 

The winter of 1 883-1 884 was passed by Mr. 
and Mrs. Westinghouse in New York City, where, 
early in the new year, a great happiness came to 
them with the birth of a son. It had been their 
desire to return to Pittsburgh as soon thereafter 
as would be prudent for mother and child, and with 
the coming of spring the family moved back. 

In the home newspapers which had reached Mr. 
Westinghouse in New York had appeared so many 
references to the development of natural gas in 
Murrysville, a suburb of Pittsburgh, that his at- 
tention was strongly drawn to this subject. It 
had been known for all of fifty years that in vari- 
ous parts of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, gas 
was to be had for the boring ; still, no scientific 
estimates had been made of its abundance, and 
only a few manufacturers had seriously attempted 
to harness it for industrial purposes. As is so often 
the case with a product which has been evolved 
as one of the incidentals to a familiar operation, 
this gas was regarded as an interesting but not 
very valuable by-product of oil development, and 
those persons who did anything at all with it treated 



OPENING A MINE OF GASEOUS WEALTH 107 

it more or less like a toy. But a balance had re- 
cently been struck in some experiments made at 
one large factory, the figures of which had caught 
the eye of Mr. Westinghouse and held it by their 
showing that in this plant the work performed by 
gas, besides being as satisfactory as that of any 
other fuel that had been tried, had effected a sav- 
ing of a good many thousand dollars in a single 
year. If this were possible on a small scale, he 
asked himself, what might not be accomplished for 
the public profit and convenience if such a fuel 
could be made universally available ? 

As the train drew them nearer home, he opened 
the subject in conversation with his wife. 

"You'd soon get as much absorbed in natural 
gas as you used to be in brakes when we first 
married," she answered in a jesting way; "but 
the brakes had one advantage over gas — you could 
always work out your problems at home, instead 
of running off to Murrysville every day." 

"I can work out my problems at home just the 
same," he laughed in response; "that is, if you 
don't mind my boring a well through your flower 
beds. But don't charge me too much for the privi- 
lege. I dare say it will cost me five thousand dol- 
lars just to sink the hole and pipe it." 

To the friends who heard gossipy echoes of this 
conversation, it seemed merely an exchange of 
harmless pleasantries ; but those who passed the 
premises soon afterward realized that there had 
been something more than fun behind it. For 
there, not in the flower garden to be sure but back 



108 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

by the stable, stood the tangible evidences of an 
intention to probe the bowels of the earth, and a 
gang of men were already at work taking away 
the cut sod and stacking close at hand the neces- 
sary piping. 

Day after day the chug-chug of the engine and 
the muffled stroke of the drill as it buried itself 
deeper and deeper in the earth kept the air in the 
neighborhood of the Westinghouse place vibrating, 
and furnished a text for a running fire of comment 
from the neighbors, some of it technically critical 
or inquisitive, some skeptical or semi-satirical. As 
a rule the people of Pittsburgh had already learned 
better than to question too boldly the probabilities 
of any large enterprise into which George Westing- 
house went with a show of confidence, but a good 
many still were of open mind as to the practical 
value of such operations as he was conducting on 
his private grounds. An occasional glimpse could 
be caught of him at night, clad in overalls and 
standing near the men, watching every new develop- 
ment with the keenest concern ; now giving an 
order, now consulting with the gang-boss, but never 
taking his eyes or his mind off whatever was in 
progress as long as he remained close at hand. 

Nearly three weeks had been expended on the 
work, and a few of the ultra-wise heads had been 
shaken in doubt, when the foreman in charge one 
evening reported that he had detected traces of 
gas. 

"How far down are you now?" asked Mr. West- 
inghouse. 



OPENING A MINE OF GASEOUS WEALTH 109 

"About 1560 feet." 

"Are the signs of gas strong?" 

"No, sir, weak; but I'm perfectly sure that a 
good supply is there, or not far away." 

"The only way to find out is to go on. Perhaps 
by tomorrow we shall get results that amount to 
something. Only, go slow — feel your way along. 
Be very careful of the men, and warn them to take 
no risks." 

That night Mr. Westinghouse went to bed late, 
fell into his usual sound sleep, and did not even 
dream of his gas well till, just before sunrise, he 
was roused with such suddenness that he sat bolt 
upright in an instant, wide-awake and staring 
around him. He was dimly conscious that what 
had startled him must have been an explosion of 
some sort ; and — was that a continuing roar, or 
an echo from a former volume of sound which was 
still rumbling in his ears ? 

He was out of bed in a flash, and a few minutes 
later in the open air, not far from the spot where 
he had been talking with the foreman the night 
before. But what a change had come over the scene ! 
All about him and for many yards around, the lawn 
looked like a ragged seabeach after a storm. Gravel, 
sand, mud, dirty water, were everywhere, blanket- 
ing the once trim sward and well-kept paths under 
an indescribable mass of filth. The big, burly 
derrick that stood over the well opening had evi- 
dently received a severe blow, and a part of the 
pulley tackle at its top was gone. The drilling appa- 
ratus was nowhere to be seen at the moment, being 



no GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

hidden beneath debris. The engine had been tossed 
aside like a squeezed orange, and lay some distance 
away, looking as if it had been rolled over and over 
in reaching its final resting place. 

All these things he could make out only dimly. 
There was a hint in the east of the approaching 
dawn, and by holding his watch close to his eyes 
he could discern that it was about twenty minutes 
after three. Out of the mouth of the well a muddy 
geyser was still spouting into the air, with a loud 
noise that was between a hurricane roar and an 
angry volcanic rumble. 

After the first effect of what he was witnessing 
had lost its vividness, he swept his surroundings 
with his glance, wondering at the absence of the 
men he had left there when he went to bed. A 
little later they emerged from the shadows one by 
one, like ghosts returning to a world from which 
they had been suddenly banished. Strangers came, 
too — persons who, within a mile radius, had been 
sleeping as calmly as he till roused by the explosion 
and set quaking with a nameless dread. 

Item by item, in broken bits of explanation and 
conversation, the facts came out. Acting on his 
suggestion, the foreman had cautioned the work- 
men to proceed slowly and with care, and the drill- 
ing had gone on with such deliberateness that only 
a matter of fifteen feet had been accomplished before 
a savage growl issuing from the hole caused them to 
drop everything and run for their lives. They were 
not a minute too soon. Behind them as they fled 
for cover rose a great boom and roar, and then 



OPENING A MINE OF GASEOUS WEALTH in 

a shower of water, mud, and gravel which the light 
breeze spread about. Nobody had waited to see 
what more was coming, and the next thing they 
noted was the appearance of the master of the estab- 
lishment on the scene. 

The first expression of Mrs. Westinghouse as she 
looked out upon the spectacle of devastation a few 
minutes later was one of comic dismay. Her hus- 
band smiled inquiringly as her eyes met his. 

"All things considered," said he, "are you satisfied 
with the experiment?" 

"Oh, very well," she answered cheerfully. "The 
house still has a roof on it, and the kitchen isn't 
wrecked." 

Breakfast was not much of a meal that morning : 
both husband and wife were too absorbed with the 
newest phenomenon. 

The day was given up to devising ways and means 
for clearing away the rubbish. This had to be 
done at a disadvantage, because nobody about the 
premises, including the drill-gang, could feel positive 
as to what was coming next. The men had drilled 
a good many wells, first and last, but not one with 
the startling results of this performance. 

Meanwhile the fountain of water and sand had 
subsided, and been succeeded by a stream of pure 
gas, which after a little lost its terrors as a novelty 
and provoked the spectators to various experiments. 
One man brought a chunk of coal weighing seven 
or eight pounds, and swinging it back and forth to 
get a tentative measure of distance, tossed it so that, 
if not intercepted, it would strike the exposed top 



112 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

of the piping. It went straight as directed, but, 
instead of alighting on the aperture, it was caught 
by the ascending jet of gas and lifted into the air 
like a chip in a gale, striking one of the beams of 
the derrick with great force and being smashed to 
pieces. Another adventurer, with the aid of a friend, 
dragged a heavy spruce plank to where they could 
push it crosswise over the opening. The stream 
of gas treated it as if it had been a strip of lath, 
breaking it in twain and entirely splintering a frag- 
ment that fell back so as partly to overhang the hole. 
Then somebody suggested that the derrick might 
be brought into play again to lower a big weight 
directly into the mouth of the well. A rope was 
attached to the upper rigging, and its loose end 
made fast to a stone that weighed perhaps a hundred 
pounds, and this was swung around so as to over- 
hang the hole. The gas played with the intruder 
like a straw, shaking the weight free, and then lift- 
ing the loose rope into the air and holding it upright 
there, as straight and stiff as a flagstaff. 

For nearly a week thereafter there was little 
sleep in the neighborhood,' the well continuing to 
roar unceasingly night and day. But the resource- 
ful mind of the inventor had been at work, and 
out of its cogitations emerged finally a stopcock 
which was a triumph of indirection in application 
and operation. By degrees the force of the flow 
was abated till it was shut off altogether, and the 
normal slumbers of the inhabitants of that part of 
the town were resumed not to be broken again for 
several nights. Then came some experiments in 



OPENING A MINE OF GASEOUS WEALTH 113 

the evenings to test the illuminating quality of the 
gas. A pipe about sixty feet high had been built 
up from the mouth of the well, with a pulley fastened 
to its top, carrying a wire rope, the extremities of 
which dangled on the ground. To one of these 
extremities was attached a bundle of rags saturated 
with oil. 

When all was ready, at a given signal the stopcock 
was turned so as to let the gas into the overhead 
pipe, and at the same time a match was applied to 
the rags and workmen began pulling on the free 
end of the rope. The burning torch ascended slowly 
till it reached almost the top of the rigging. Then 
a sudden strong pull finished its ascent, and a 
faint bluish flame was observed surrounding the rim 
of the pipe. The next instant, like a lightning 
flash connecting heaven and earth, a pillar of fire 
shot a hundred feet upward into the sky and was 
followed by a steady fountain of flame that was a 
marvelous study in colors. At its base was a jet 
of blue, brightening into pale yellow as it ascended, 
then becoming a dazzling white, and expanding like 
a tubular fan, the outer edges passing through vari- 
ous shades of yellow and orange into a sort of Indian 
red. The gas lamps of the city dwindled to little 
points of light, and persons in the street not less than 
a mile away were able to read distinctly the finest 
newspaper print by the light of the gigantic natural 
flambeau on the heights of "Solitude." 

Unhappily the roaring noise which had so dis- 
turbed the repose of the neighbors at the outset 
was resumed while the gas was burning. It was 



114 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

not so bad as at first, but it was a serious enough 
nuisance to demand moderating. So, after the 
experiments had been repeated, with variations 
of detail, till the possibilities of the illuminant had 
been pretty well canvassed, the evening performances 
ceased, and Mr. Westinghouse announced that he 
was perfecting plans to connect his well with a sys- 
tem of city mains and dispense light and heat, and 
incidentally power, over a considerable area. The 
gas, he was satisfied, was of a quality markedly 
superior to anything produced by artificial processes, 
yet capable of being sold at a low price with a good 
profit. One of the large manufacturing concerns 
in Pittsburgh which was already using natural gas 
with fine effect was compelled to bring every foot 
of its supply from Murrysville, twenty miles away, 
at a cost of one hundred and twenty thousand dol- 
lars a year, and in a single ward a local company 
was collecting three hundred thousand dollars a 
year in gas bills. In yet other ways the Westing- 
house discovery promised to work wonders for 
Pittsburgh ; in none more potent than in changing 
a notoriously dirty city into a clean one. 

But along with the bright prospects of the new 
enterprise came some decided drawbacks to be reck- 
oned with. One of these was the exaggerated 
spontaneity of the supply, making it difficult to 
pinion it down to the work required of it. Gas 
artificially produced could of course be artificially 
regulated as well, but nature was a less compliant 
servant. The pressure she furnished was not meas- 
ured by the immediate needs of the consumer or 



OPENING A MINE OF GASEOUS WEALTH 115 

the peculiar exigencies of a situation : it came al- 
ways and everywhere with unrestrained force, and 
the problem now before Westinghouse was how to 
make it obedient to the will of its employer. This 
demand was emphasized by the appearance in the 
newspapers, almost daily, of accounts of explosions 
or other accidents due to ill-regulated pressure, or 
popular ignorance of the best way of managing the 
unfamiliar fluid. Being invisible and almost odor- 
less, it was always a menace, and its tremendous 
pressure forced it through every minute crevice, 
where, even if it were escaping from a carefully 
sunken main, it was liable to find its way through 
the softer spots in the soil. An accident resulting 
from this cause, which excited a great commotion 
in Pittsburgh and set everybody talking of the 
perils one must face in using natural gas, occurred 
in one of the large stables where a hostler struck 
a match one evening to light his lantern. A terrific 
explosion followed. The man was blown thirty 
feet through the air, a valuable horse was instantly 
killed, and the building was set afire and wrecked. 
It was then recalled that the stable stood on made 
ground ; and as this was the case with most of the 
mills along the river front, there was, for a while, 
something like a suppressed panic in local manu- 
facturing circles. 

The underwriting companies, too, took a hand in 
the discussion, threatening to raise their rates to 
what would have been substantially prohibitory 
figures, unless changes were made in the method of 
transporting so dangerous an explosive. Some went 



n6 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

to the length of actually serving notice of the can- 
cellation of certain outstanding contracts at a given 
future date. The first thing Westinghouse did, 
therefore, after arranging for the organization of 
a company for the distribution and sale of the gas 
from his well, was to invent a system of transporta- 
tion. His initial improvement was to use two pipes, 
one inside of the other. The inner pipe received 
the gas from the original source, and carried it to 
the entrances of the manufacturing establishments, 
where its pressure remained nearly as at the well. 
On the way, however, it was subject to constant 
leakage, the pressure forcing infinitesimal jets through 
the interstices in the joints of the pipe. But this 
leakage, instead of passing into the earth, and so 
on to cellars or other confined places where it was 
dangerous, was caught in the outer pipe and then 
permitted to escape to the atmosphere at a point 
of safety. In later practice the joints of the convey- 
ing pipe only were inclosed with a protecting cover, 
which was equivalent to the double pipe and greatly 
reduced the cost as compared with using two com- 
plete lines of piping. Westinghouse also, in order 
to reduce the cost of piping and dangers from undue 
pressure, and make the ultimate product more 
amenable to control for industrial purposes, arranged 
a system of pipes of graded capacities, so that the 
smallest took the gas directly from the well and the 
larger ones allowed it an opportunity for expansion 
till, by the time it was furnished to the consumer, 
it was as easy to manage as gas produced from coal 
by the ordinary process. 



OPENING A MINE OF GASEOUS WEALTH 117 

One of the details he had to work out gave West- 
inghouse a good deal of trouble, and not a few of 
his friends predicted that he would never be able 
to devise a satisfactory apparatus. Their skepticism 
merely stimulated him to fresh effort, which ulti- 
mately led to the production of a mechanism chiefly 
employed for domestic purposes and so arranged as 
to prevent a class of explosive accidents that had 
resulted in several fatalities. 

For unavoidable reasons, the supply of gas was 
not infrequently interrupted without notice to users, 
and in such instances the fires would go out. When 
the gas was again turned on in the mains, if the 
outlets had not been closed, there would be an escape 
of gas which often, on account of its lack of odor, 
was not noticed until an attempt was made to re- 
light the fire. If there was an accumulation of gas, 
as was commonly the case, disastrous results would 
follow, and it became increasingly evident that some 
precaution was necessary, more effective than a 
mere admonition to the users to exercise great care. 
The problem was solved by the invention of a cut-off 
valve device, located in the supply pipe where gas 
was taken from the street mains into the building, 
and so organized that if, for any reason, gas was shut 
off from the mains, the valve automatically closed 
and could not be opened again until all the connec- 
tions in the building had been cut off. 

The many advantages of gas for fuel purposes, 
as demonstrated on a vast scale in the natural gas 
development in Pittsburgh, at once awakened in 
the mind of Mr. Westinghouse great interest in the 



n8 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

problem of the production of an artificial fuel gas 
that could be made available for localities removed 
from the natural gas fields. In cooperation with 
noted gas engineers he undertook a series of experi- 
ments extending over many years and involving 
large expenditures, hoping that a process for manu- 
facturing gas might be developed that would make 
its general use for fuel purposes commercial. The 
net result of his investigations, though not ma- 
terially advancing the art, led incidentally to the 
development of a producer for making gas from 
bituminous coal, that was a marked improvement 
upon similar devices then on the market. Its manu- 
facture is still successfully continued. 



CHAPTER IX 
What the Gas Did for Pittsburgh 

The difficulties of the situation were not confined 
to the solution of the problems already described. 
In order to carry gas from his well to the consumers, 
it was necessary for Westinghouse to obtain per- 
mission from the city authorities to lay pipes under 
the streets, and this meant tearing up pavements 
and more or less other disturbance of the routine 
of traffic. At once arose a commotion. Certain 
local dispensers of illuminating gas saw a peril to 
their business in the threatened invasion of the field 
by this "amateur", as they styled him, and their 
friends in the municipal Councils and on the press 
were encouraged to throw all sorts of obstacles into 
his way. He took pains at the outset to make it 
plain that he had no intention of asking a conces- 
sion from the city without giving something in re- 
turn, and his first application embraced an offer, 
if allowed to lay his pipes as indicated, to furnish 
the fire-engine houses and police stations with gas 
free of cost. 

He was careful also to declare that he had no 
ambition to hold the sole control of the commodity, 
to make exorbitant profits, or to dictate arbitrary 



120 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

terms to any manufacturing interest, but would 
prefer a cooperative arrangement, whereby the 
business concerns that were likely to derive most 
advantage from the use of the gas should go in with 
him and share the advantages of his enterprise. 
"What I am seeking now," he said, "is to distribute 
the benefits of this discovery, receiving merely a 
fair compensation for my property — nothing 
more." 

The first objection raised was that to grant to 
one person or company a privilege which was not 
thrown open on similar terms to whoever desired 
it would lead to all sorts of abuses, for the only way 
in which such a grant could be kept from putting 
the whole community under the yoke of a monopoly 
was to give to every applicant a permit to rip the 
highway to pieces, and for eminently practical 
reasons that seemed out of the question. A struggle 
of several weeks in the Councils ensued, the bone of 
contention being an ordinance so drawn, with the 
approval of Mr. Westinghouse, as to hinge his grant 
on the condition that he would undertake to convey 
the gas of any other producer through his pipes up 
to their capacity, the charge for such service to be 
arranged between him and his customers, and any 
disagreement referred to a trio of arbitrators. With 
every fresh outburst of opposition the reporters 
would run to him for an interview, evidently hoping 
to draw forth something in the way of a sensational 
denunciation ; but he remained perfectly equable 
in mind and temper. 

The old apprehensions excited by the explosive 



WHAT THE GAS DID FOR PITTSBURGH 121 

quality of the gas were revived from time to time 
by some casualty, of which the hostile combination 
could always be trusted to make the most strenuous 
use. One such occurred at "Solitude" which would 
have given his opponents a fine weapon if they had 
not fallen into the blunder of gross exaggeration 
in their first accounts of it and thus invited an anti- 
climax in its popular effect. Two workmen employed 
to remove the outer pipe or casing at the mouth of 
the pioneer well and substitute another encountered 
a refractory joint, and ran a steel drill down beside 
it to loosen it. As nearly as they could remember 
the details later, they kept the drill wet all the time ; 
but the impact of the metals apparently produced 
a spark which ignited a jet of escaping gas, and in 
an instant they were in the midst of a sheet of flame 
and almost suffocated. The blaze burned their 
eyes, faces, necks, shoulders and hands. With a 
cry they staggered back and threw themselves into 
a bed of long grass, while other men working near 
by rushed to their assistance. An alarm was sent 
to the nearest engine houses, and two hose compa- 
nies were presently on the spot and playing streams 
upon the combustibles about the well, and, with 
the aid of a length of pipe and some wet blankets, 
the fire was suppressed. The speed with which 
everything was done doubtless saved the day ; but 
it did not prevent the wide circulation of a rumor 
that some laborers had been killed by gas on the 
Westinghouse place, and within an hour the yard 
was swarming with citizens and newspaper emis- 
saries. Instead of the tragedy for which they were 



122 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

looking, they found Mrs. Westinghouse taking care 
of two badly scorched workmen, for whom she had 
summoned her family physician. And thus an 
episode which the opposition at first counted upon 
to stir up public sentiment against further encour- 
agement to the natural gas industry in Pittsburgh 
came to naught. 

In due course, the Councils passed the desired 
ordinance, substantially as at first proposed. Mean- 
while Mr. Westinghouse had organized a number of 
small companies, designed to divide between them 
the territory in which they should be the first comers 
in the field. There were not lacking, in the well 
on the "Solitude" estate, certain disquieting symp- 
toms, which he interpreted to mean that he could 
not afford to rely upon that alone for his supply 
if he were going into the gas business on the scale 
he had in mind ; so he drilled two or three more 
wells on his own premises and bought easements on 
many other pieces of property in the Murrysville 
district and elsewhere, and it was for handling these 
and making them tributary to the central concern 
that he organized his group of lesser companies. 

But how was he to acquire the powers necessary 
to a corporation of the magnitude he wished to build 
up? It would have to procure rights of way by 
either purchase or condemnation before it could 
lay its pipes across private property anywhere. 
Besides that it must find, in Pittsburgh proper, 
some means of getting around an obstacle. The 
Fuel Gas Company, the head and soul of the opposi- 
tion, had organized under an old law of Pennsyl- 




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WHAT THE GAS DID FOR PITTSBURGH 123 

vania which conferred upon the public utility cor- 
poration of this character that was first to enter 
any given municipality a monopoly of its business 
there. Soon after the enactment of this statute 
there had been a tremendous activity in the creation 
of corporations, but a multitude of these mushroom 
affairs had since collapsed under the withering effect 
of a statute which conserved the life only of those 
that had been regularly organized to do business 
before its passage. John Dalzell, then engaged 
in the private practice of law in Pittsburgh and later 
a member of Congress, was Mr. Westinghouse's 
attorney, and to him Mr. Westinghouse turned in 
this emergency. Mr. Dalzell recalled the fact that 
several companies had taken out charters and gone 
into business under the old system, had bridged 
over the gap between the old and the new, and later 
had ceased to be active. As the capital of the 
State was the place where the records covering such 
matters were most likely to be available, he hastened 
to Harrisburg, where he laid the matter before an 
old professional friend who promptly announced : 
"I can put my hand upon the very thing you wish. 
Tom Scott procured from the legislature years 
ago a special charter for a corporation called the 
Philadelphia Company. He wanted it for the pur- 
pose of building a branch railroad tributary to the 
Pennsylvania system, but never used it, and in 
time it passed into other hands. This charter was 
so drawn that under it you can do almost anything 
you care to except engage in the business of bank- 
ing. You can run a railroad, furnish a city with 



124 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

water, conduct a public cemetery, develop an oil- 
field—'" 

"Or produce and distribute natural gas?" sug- 
gested Dalzell. 

"Surely." 

"Then how does it come to be now on the market ? 
Why isn't some one using it?" 

"Well, that's hard to say. Whoever got hold 
of it finally proved a delinquent taxpayer, and the 
charter was sold under the hammer. I bid it in ; 
and as the rights conveyed by it pass unimpaired 
to the purchaser at a tax sale, the charter is as good 
today as it was on the day the Governor signed it." 

"How much can we get it for?" 

"Thirty-five thousand dollars." 

Dalzell whistled, but as his friend declined to 
consider any lower terms he carried the offer back 
to Pittsburgh with some misgivings. Mr. West- 
inghouse, instead of being irritated at the price 
named, received the news with apparent satisfaction, 
remarking : 

"If the charter is all that is represented, I'll buy it. 
Go over it carefully and give me your written opinion." 

Dalzell did so, reported in favor of the charter, 
and the money passed. Equipped now with all 
the weapons necessary for his fight with his confed- 
erated rivals, Westinghouse proceeded to launch 
the Philadelphia Company in its new domain. 

Two special conditions contributed largely to 
hamper this undertaking. Not long before the com- 
pany announced itself ready for business, the Penn 
Bank, a financial institution of supposed soundness 



WHAT THE GAS DID FOR PITTSBURGH 125 

in which a great many Pittsburghers were deposi- 
tors, had suddenly collapsed, and a series of mer- 
cantile failures occurred in and about the city. In 
these circumstances, few people were favorably 
inclined toward new and untested lines of invest- 
ment. Then, also, a popular doubt had sprung 
up, industriously cultivated by the hostile combina- 
tion, as to how long the supply of natural gas would 
continue sufficient in quantity to meet the extraordi- 
nary drafts which would be made upon it if all the 
mills in the Pittsburgh district were to substitute 
gas for coal. One statistician whose opinion was 
generally regarded as reliable published an estimate 
that the total consumption, including both manu- 
facturing establishments and houses, but excluding 
blast furnaces, would run as high as thirty million 
feet a day. The local population, not accustomed 
to figures of this magnitude, were taken by surprise, 
and they had not yet fully recovered their breath 
when Mr. Westinghouse, to whom the estimate 
had been carried for criticism, met it, not with denials 
or evasions, but with the still more startling declara- 
tion that the probabilities pointed to nearer four 
hundred million feet. His own idea was that the 
frankness of this announcement would tend to re- 
store confidence rather than shake it further. He 
discussed the matter on this basis with an old friend 
whom he often consulted about financing problems, 
and who presently inquired: "At what capitaliza- 
tion do you purpose starting your company?" 

"In view of all the chances we must take," he 
answered, "I don't believe we can afford to have 



126 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

less than six million dollars to begin with. How 
does it look to you?" 

"Your scheme is grand. If you had the wealth 
of the Indies to draw upon for making it go, you 
would rank with the world's great benefactors. 
But when you reflect that you have got to woo 
every one of those dollars from the purse of some 
one whose fright over recent events has made a 
dollar within reach look bigger than ten dollars he 
will have to wait for, you are tackling no light job." 

"'Woo'? 'Fright'?" echoed Westinghouse. "Why, 
man, you don't know what you are talking about. 
There isn't a manufacturer in Pittsburgh so blind 
as not to be able to see what the future has in store 
for us here. When we announce that we are ready 
for subscriptions to our stock, there will be a rush 
for shares such as you have never seen or dreamed 
of. I shouldn't wonder if we had to engage a squad 
of police to keep order !" 

In the Pittsburgh newspapers of August 4, 1884, 
appeared an advertisement filling between three 
and four columns, setting forth the prospectus of 
the Philadelphia Company,' naming as its officers 
George Westinghouse, Junior, president, Robert 
Pitcairn, vice president, John Caldwell, secretary 
and treasurer. The board of directors included 
with these officers H. H. Westinghouse and John 
Dalzell. T. A. Gillespie also was mentioned as a 
stockholder, but with no office. The company, 
it appeared, owned all the gas rights on the "Soli- 
tude" property and sundry other tracts where it 
had already drilled wells or might thereafter drill 



WHAT THE GAS DID FOR PITTSBURGH 127 

them, as well as Westinghouse's patent Number 
301,191, for a "system for conveying and utilizing 
gas under pressure", covering the features referred 
to in a previous chapter. 

Possibly his consultation with his old friend was 
responsible for a slight change in the original plan, 
for we find that the capital stock of the company 
was fixed, for the time being, at only one hundred 
thousand dollars, although the advertisement an- 
nounces an intention to increase this to five million 
dollars, " so that funds may be secured to operate 
largely in the distribution and supply of natural 
gas at whatever points, within the Commonwealth 
or without, there may be demand therefor." With 
the increase of capital, the gas wells and potentially 
productive territory controlled by Westinghouse, 
his patent on pipes for transporting gas, and the 
charter of the company, were to be put in at a valua- 
tion of two million, five hundred and fifty thousand 
dollars, the remainder of the five million dollars 
stock being offered to the public for subscription. 
This advertisement was repeated four times at later 
dates. 

It is scarcely necessary to say that the expected 
rush did not materialize, and that the banks which 
had undertaken to receive subscriptions were able 
to go on with their ordinary routine of daily trade. 
After waiting long enough to satisfy himself that his 
fellow citizens generally did not share his glowing 
anticipations, Westinghouse made a canvass among 
his circle of personal friends, reenforcing the pros- 
pects held out in print with a running commentary 



128 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

of his own. As always happened at close contact, 
his enthusiasm proved infectious. In blocks rang- 
ing from a hundred shares to several thousand, he 
disposed of as much of the stock of the new corpora- 
tion as was necessary to enable it to begin business, 
and before very long the rumors that it was turning 
out a money-maker caused a lively speculation in 
its shares. Its first dividends were at the rate of 
one per cent a month, but later it was thought 
prudent to reduce this to eight per cent a year. 
While Westinghouse was still its principal figure, 
his company put up a splendid office building in 
the heart of the business center of Pittsburgh, 
where, from the upper windows, he could look over 
at the strip of railroad track on which he made 
his first demonstration of the practical operation 
of his air brake. 

In course of time, as some of the less hopeful 
prophets had predicted, the local use of natural 
gas for manufacturing was materially reduced. This 
was due partly to the diminished product of the 
near-by wells, which necessitated bringing in a supply 
from distant fields and at • an increased cost, and 
partly to the comparative cheapness of the coal 
mined almost at the doors of the city, which experts 
have pronounced the finest manufacturing coal in 
the world. But natural gas is still used almost 
universally in Pittsburgh and its neighborhood for 
domestic purposes, and to a considerable extent in 
industrial lines. 

While the direct results of the natural gas develop- 
ment in the Pittsburgh district were vast in their 



WHAT THE GAS DID FOR PITTSBURGH 129 

financial aspect, the indirect consequences are more 
difficult to comprehend or estimate. At about the 
time when the availability of gas for manufacturing 
purposes was demonstrated, the question of the 
best location for the economical production of iron 
and steel was receiving most serious consideration. 
Iron ores had theretofore been brought from the 
Northwest by lake and rail to Pittsburgh, because 
of the presence there of an ample and cheap supply 
of fuel necessary for the production of iron and steel. 
Some point on the shores of Lake Erie where the fuel 
and iron would meet, and thus save transshipment 
of the ore, appeared to offer inducements in the way 
of low production costs. The introduction of nat- 
ural gas, however, for the time so changed condi- 
tions as to induce the establishment in the vicinity 
of Pittsburgh of many new large steel and iron 
industries that otherwise would probably have 
been located elsewhere. These have now become 
permanent, and, though the increased cost of nat- 
ural gas has restored the fuel and iron ore situation 
to something like that which preceded the gas 
development, there is no reason to apprehend that 
the recognized availability of the Pittsburgh dis- 
trict for steel and iron manufacture will be dis- 
turbed. 

Let it not be forgotten, either, that Pittsburgh 
learned for a while what it meant to be clean. Dur- 
ing the natural gas regime, the pall of soot which 
had hung over the city for years, showering dirt 
on everything, was lifted, and many householders 
celebrated the relief by painting their dwellings 



130 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

white. The soot has now come back in sufficient 
quantity to be a nuisance, but ingenious minds are 
working on devices to get finally rid of it, as they 
would not have worked if the people had not enjoyed 
one refreshing draught of something better. Mean- 
while the Philadelphia Company has expanded 
beyond recognition, adding one asset after another 
to its possessions, till today it controls substantially 
all the public utilities in the city and immediate 
suburbs. 



CHAPTER X 
The Contest of the Currents 

The Westinghouse Machine Company was or- 
ganized in 1880, originally to build high-speed en- 
gines of a type invented by Herman Westinghouse. 
A contract having been made with the Brush Elec- 
tric Company to furnish it with these engines for 
use with direct-driven dynamos in its system of 
arc lighting, Herman had occasion to make a night 
trip from New York to Boston, and in the smoking 
room of his sleeper fell into conversation about his 
errand with a young man who dropped the remark 
that he, too, was interested in electric illumination, 
but in a more immediate way, having recently in- 
vented a self-regulating dynamo which he believed 
would solve one of the most vexatious problems in 
incandescent lighting. Up to that time the dynamos 
made by the Edison Company, the leading concern 
in the incandescent field, had required regulation by 
hand in order to keep the current suitably propor- 
tioned to the drafts made upon it ; without this, 
the extinction of one lamp would throw an addi- 
tional force into all the others drawing upon the 
same source of supply, with a consequent waste 
of both current and material. The self-regulating 



132 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

dynamo, of course, eliminated the expense and 
uncertainty of the human factor. The inventor 
invited his new acquaintance to call on his return, 
and look at the machine, introducing himself as 
William Stanley, an electrical engineer by pro- 
fession. 

Although nothing of importance resulted immedi- 
ately from this meeting, it paved the way for rela- 
tions of much intimacy in later years, when George 
Westinghouse, having become interested in what 
he learned about the dynamo and about a lamp of 
Stanley's invention, engaged the young man to 
conduct sundry experiments in the same line at the 
works of the Union Switch and Signal Company, 
and out of these grew the first electrical apparatus 
manufactured under the Westinghouse auspices. 
The enterprise was not extensive in its beginnings, 
consisting chiefly of supplying apparatus for incan- 
descent lighting in competition with the Edison 
Company, there being little difference between the 
two systems except for the important self-regulat- 
ing feature of the dynamo. One of its indirect 
effects, however, was to bring sharply to the atten- 
tion of Westinghouse the limitations of the direct 
current system then exclusively employed for light- 
ing and power purposes, ultimately leading to his 
early identification of the great advantage to be 
derived by the substitution of the alternating sys- 
tem for the direct system. And thus we approach 
the verge of one of the hardest fought wars that 
ever occurred in the scientific field, the contest of 
the currents. 



THE CONTEST OF THE CURRENTS 133 

For the reader's better understanding, it may be 
said that a direct or continuous current is compa- 
rable to water made to flow through a pipe always 
in one direction, whereas an alternating current is 
as if the same water were made to flow through the 
pipe first in one direction and then in the other, the 
reversals of direction occurring a great many times 
in a single second — an expedition which would 
be possible only in so imponderable an essence as 
electricity. The result to the user of electricity is 
practically the same with either system, except in 
the matter of cost. With the direct system it is 
necessary to generate and distribute the current at 
a pressure, or voltage, that will not burn out the 
filament of incandescent lamps. As this pressure 
is relatively very low, and the quantity of electricity 
that can be conveyed by wires is dependent upon 
the pressure at which it is being distributed, the 
cost of the conducting wires, constituting a large 
part of the investment in an electric production and 
distribution system, is greatly increased as compared 
with the alternating system ; in the latter, very high 
electrical pressures can be employed, with a pro- 
portionate reduction in the cost of the distributing 
wires, and then, by simple and cheap mechanisms, 
transformed or converted to the required low pres- 
sures at the point of use. 

At the time we are now considering, the popular 
impression was general that it would be out of the 
question to employ the alternating current for 
incandescent lighting, inasmuch as such high pres- 
sures would burn out the filaments of incandescent 



134 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

lamps. Moreover, there prevailed a widespread 
terror of an invisible agent with such a capacity for 
the destruction of life by shock and of property by 
fire. To the discovery of some means whereby the 
mighty resources of the alternating current could 
be placed, with reasonable safety and for a price 
not prohibitive, at the disposal of whoever wished 
to use it for impelling the machinery of manufacture, 
for lighting streets, halls and houses, or for easing 
the difficulties of housekeeping, Mr. Westinghouse 
directed his own ingenuity and devoted that of the 
little scientific corps he gradually gathered about 
him. 

During one of her journeys abroad, Mrs. West- 
inghouse had fallen dangerously ill and been restored 
to health by the skill of an Italian physician named 
Pantaleoni. Mr. Westinghouse was deeply grate- 
ful, and, when he found that Guido Pantaleoni, 
the doctor's son, had inherited a scientific bent, 
he brought the young man to this country and gave 
him a responsible position in the employ of the Union 
Switch and Signal Company. Albert Schmid, a 
Swiss engineer of great competence, whom Mr. 
Westinghouse had met while looking into certain 
arc-light experiments in Paris, came over about the 
same time and was taken on, his special function 
being to design and construct the dynamos needed 
to carry into practical effect the discoveries reported 
by Stanley from the laboratory. Member after 
member was thus added to the staff, which later 
included, as the chief's interest in electrical matters 
grew more intense, Oliver B. Shallenberger, Nikola 




Marguerite Erskine Westinghouse 



THE CONTEST OF THE CURRENTS 135 

Tesla, Reginald Belfield, Charles F. Scott, Lewis B. 
Stillwell, Loyall A. Osborne, and several other 
gifted and ambitious young engineers who have 
since become famous in their own right. 

The fundamental limitations of the direct current 
system, already pointed out, had been fully developed 
during the early '8os, and the exorbitant cost of 
distribution, due to the heavy copper wire necessary 
to be used, threatened to be still further enhanced 
by an increase in the cost of copper. When to this 
was added the multiplication of distributing sta- 
tions necessitated by the short carrying distance 
of the direct current, Westinghouse felt that hard 
and fast bounds had been set to the expansion of 
the industry. The London technical weekly, Engi- 
neering, had paid unusual attention, as early as 1883, 
to certain letters patent issued jointly in Great 
Britain to a brace of collaborators, a French elec- 
trician named Lucien Gaulard and an English engi- 
neer named John Dixon Gibbs. Their invention 
consisted of a system for distributing alternating 
currents through "transformers", and their mech- 
anism had made its first public appearance at an 
electrical show held in the Westminster Aquarium. 

The earlier printed references to the device seem 
not to have particularly appealed to Westinghouse ; 
but in the spring of 1885 he became very much 
interested in some descriptive and illustrated articles 
dealing with the electric lighting department of 
an International Inventions Exhibition just opened 
in South Kensington. On this occasion lamps 
manufactured by his own company were among 



136 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

the foreign products displayed. A competing con- 
cern was showing a number of its lamps of different 
types, every one fed by a current obtained from a 
Gaulard-Gibbs ''secondary generator", which, as 
Engineering explained, was an apparatus designed 
to make it possible to carry a large amount of elec- 
trical energy on a small conductor, and draw it off 
at various points in such quantities and under such 
pressure conditions as might be required. From a 
single small main were fed large and small arc lamps, 
Jablochkoff candles and incandescent lamps, re- 
quiring varying electromotive forces. At every 
place where there was a lamp or group of lamps of 
one character, a secondary generator or transformer 
was inserted into the circuit, and a part of the 
energy flowing in the main and primary circuit 
was made to induce a corresponding and nearly 
equal amount of energy in a local secondary circuit, 
of the required electrical pressure. 

On the strength of this testimony, Westinghouse 
arranged to import a few of the Gaulard-Gibbs 
transformers. They arrived in the autumn of 1885, 
and the tests to which they were subjected by Mr. 
Westinghouse's electricians of the Union Switch 
and Signal Company during the next few months 
satisfied him that the European inventors had hit 
upon one idea for which he had long been searching ; 
for his success in sending natural gas through rela- 
tively small pipes and high pressure over long 
distances, and distributing it to consumers under 
reduced pressure, led him to believe that electric 
current could in the same way be advantageously 



THE CONTEST OF THE CURRENTS 137 

distributed at high voltage and locally reduced by 
transformers, or converters, as they then were 
called. Mr. Stanley, with the assistance of some of 
his junior colleagues, conducted a series of experi- 
ments which showed that the serial system of Gau- 
lard and Gibbs should be changed to a multiple-arc, 
or parallel, arrangement of transformers. The dif- 
ference may be illustrated in miniature by supposing 
a current to be arranged to feed ten lamps, set 
serially in a circle, by passing from lamp to lamp 
over an intervening wire ; now, if anything happens 
to one of the lamps and interrupts the current 
there, all the lamps must go unfed ; whereas, if the 
same ten lamps were separately supplied, each 
having its individual wire to it from a common 
main, any one could be cut off without stopping the 
flow to the rest. This last condition illustrates 
roughly the multiple-arc or parallel system, as 
distinguished from the serial. 

It was soon found that the ratio of transformation 
of which the Gaulard-Gibbs converters were capable 
was insufficient for the purposes the Company 
had in view, and special transformers, therefore, 
had to be designed. Westinghouse arranged with 
Stanley, whose health had become impaired, to 
go to Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and estab- 
lish an experimental laboratory for the develop- 
ment of better types of generators and transformers. 
Here Stanley constructed about a dozen transformers 
designed to reduce a five-hundred-volt main line 
potential to one hundred volts in the secondary, 
and, in the spring of 1886, placed these in successful 



i 3 8 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

operation and lighted several stores in the village. 
This was the first installation of the transformer 
system in this country to furnish outside lighting. 

Meanwhile, one afternoon in February, in the 
first flush of satisfaction over some very recent 
accomplishment, Mr. Westinghouse had telegraphed 
Franklin L. Pope, his New York patent lawyer and 
an expert in electrical science, to take the next day's 
steamer for England. Pantaleoni, who was in Pitts- 
burgh at the time, was dispatched by the first train 
to New York to join Pope and accompany him 
abroad. The interview at which he received his 
instructions was short and to the point. The ex- 
planation of the errand on which Pope and he were 
about to start was condensed by Westinghouse into 
a simple command to find Gaulard and Gibbs and 
buy their patent rights for the United States, and 
all the young man ventured to inquire was : "How 
much are we to pay for the rights?" 

"They'll tell you their price," was the terse re- 
sponse. "Whatever it is, close the bargain, and 
I'll send the money by cable to you." 

Within a month the two- men were back in this 
country, bearing the assignment of the patent rights 
desired, for which they had paid fifty thousand 
dollars. Westinghouse had some difficulty at first 
in getting his acquired rights recognized by our 
Patent Office, but by September this tangle was 
cut. His staff, who in the interval had been study- 
ing the possibilities of this latest system of distri- 
bution, now attacked their task afresh from their 
better vantage ground. 



THE CONTEST OF THE CURRENTS 139 

A convenient opportunity having arisen for re- 
moving the works of the Union Switch and Signal 
Company to the suburb of Swissvale, its old quarters 
in Garrison Alley, Pittsburgh, were fitted up as a 
factory for making electrical apparatus, and a cor- 
poration organized under the title of the Westing- 
house Electric Company took over this branch of 
the Union Switch and Signal Company's business. 
Here was constructed a new alternating-current 
constant-potential dynamo invented and designed 
by Stanley. By the following autumn the Electric 
Company was prepared to make an impressive 
demonstration. A number of converters and four 
hundred lamps were placed in a building at Lawrence- 
ville, about four miles from the dynamo which was 
operated at first to supply one thousand volts and 
afterward two thousand. The lamps fed from this 
current were kept burning continuously for a fort- 
night. Westinghouse visited them daily to observe 
their action. It was the first successful exhibition 
ever made in the United States of the transmission 
of electrical energy for any considerable distance! 
through the medium of the alternating current. 
The same dynamo, with converters, was then 
removed to Buffalo, New York, and placed in actual 
service on the night before Thanksgiving, 1886. 

The tests having gone far enough to leave no room 
for doubt of what could be accomplished, orders 
began to come in for the new apparatus, which 
promised to revolutionize electric lighting by so 
reducing the necessary cost as to put small towns 
substantially on an equal footing with large ones as 



i 4 o GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

to public illumination. Greensburg, about twenty 
miles from Pittsburgh, is credited with having been 
the first town to procure a complete municipal 
plant using the Westinghouse alternating current 
system. The business of the Company advanced 
at a rate with which it was almost impossible to keep 
apace in manufacturing ; the works had to be en- 
larged, and within two years the force employed 
there numbered three thousand men. 

Not every obstacle, however, had yet been cleared 
from the path of the new company. Of two things 
it stood sorely in need : a meter which would accu- 
rately gauge the amount of electrical energy dispensed 
or applied, and a power motor. Both came soon. 
In the spring of 1888, Shallenberger was examining 
an arc lamp to which Lange, another of Westing- 
house's engineers, had invited his attention, when a 
small spiral spring chanced to drop out of place and 
lodge upon the top of the magnet spool near the 
projecting core. The friend was about to pick it 
up, when Shallenberger caught his arm, saying 
quickly : "Wait ! Let's see what makes that spring 
revolve." The spring, which was about an inch in 
length and of the diameter of a lead pencil, was 
slowly rotating on its longitudinal axis. They 
watched it silently for a while, when Shallenberger 
exclaimed: "I will make a meter out of that!" 
Precisely four weeks from that day he had a com- 
pletely developed alternating-current meter to ex- 
hibit to his colleagues, and by August it was ready 
to place on the market. 

It was to Tesla — described by one of his asso- 



THE CONTEST OF THE CURRENTS 141 

ciates of those days as "an inspired genius, into 
whose mind inventions sprang as the conception of 
a great picture projects itself upon the imagination 
of an artist" — that the Company owed its desired 
motor. By an odd coincidence, on the day follow- 
ing the incident with the meter, Ferrari published in 
Italy a description of an electric motor operating on 
essentially the same principle as the Shallenberger 
meter ; and about four weeks later Tesla's descrip- 
tion of his own motor was presented to the Ameri- 
can Institute of Electrical Engineers in New York. 
Tesla and Ferrari, separated by three thousand miles, 
had independently of each other, but simultaneously, 
worked out the theory on which the modern alter- 
nating-current motor operates. Tesla was the earlier 
accredited inventor of the motor itself, having filed 
his applications for patents a considerable time 
before the Ferrari publication, and his discoveries 
went further than Ferrari's, including a polyphase 
system which was more satisfactorily adapted to 
the distribution of large power units. 

It must not be supposed that all the more recent 
activity of the Westinghouse Electric Company 
had escaped the notice of the concerns engaged in 
the manufacture of direct current electrical appa- 
ratus. They had at first treated it as a passing 
phase of business rivalry, but, with the develop- 
ments just mentioned, they awoke to a realiza- 
tion that a field which they had had for so long 
practically to themselves had been invaded by a 
rival too powerful to resist with merely defensive 
tactics. 



142 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

The aggressive warfare which was opened forth- 
with upon George Westinghouse and his industry- 
can be fully appreciated only by reading the news- 
papers of that day. Advertising columns, news 
columns, and editorial columns were employed indis- 
criminately to carry on the campaign, of which 
anything like a full history would require several 
volumes as large as this. The summary that fol- 
lows, however, will suffice to indicate its scope and 
spirit. 



CHAPTER XI 

The Struggle in New York 

In pursuance of his custom of carrying his goods 
to the largest market, Westinghouse took speedy 
steps to introduce his lighting system into New York 
city in competition with the systems already on the 
spot. That was before the era of underground 
telegraphy, and the streets had for years been dis- 
figured with the unsightly poles laden with telegraph 
and telephone wires ; so that, when electric illumina- 
tion began its career there, such additional wires as 
it required were, as a matter of course, strung in 
like manner. 

Although arc lights, fed by high potential direct 
currents, had been obtrusively in evidence every- 
where in New York since the early '8os, their feeding 
mains appear to have aroused little criticism as a 
nuisance ; but with the advent of the Westinghouse 
enterprise, all overhead cables suddenly leaped into 
prominence not only as eyesores but as a public peril. 
Leading newspapers which till then had confined 
their discussion to the expediency of exchanging gas 
for electricity, began, with astonishing unanimity, 
to make a display of every happening that could be 



144 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

used to excite animosity in the popular mind toward 
the alternating current. A boy peddler was killed 
by contact with a wire that hung too low ; a repairer 
was stricken while mending an insulator at the top 
of a pole : at once the incidents were seized upon 
and the most was made of them for their local effect, 
regardless of how much or how little the character 
of the current had to do with the matter. When a 
horse stepped upon a fallen wire in Buffalo and it and 
its driver were killed, or a wooden house in Pitts- 
burgh was set ablaze by contact with an exposed 
conductor, despatches descriptive of the painful 
details, often rendered more lurid by the imaginative 
narrator, were promptly telegraphed to New York. 
A few dailies set up a special department for injuries 
inflicted, damage suits entered, charitable funds 
started for adults crippled or children orphaned — 
all in consequence of the indifference of the great 
mass of the citizens to the arch destroyer hovering 
over their heads ! One fatal accident was exploited 
through ten papers of the following day, in articles 
from a half-column to five columns long, under this 
variety of headings in exaggerated type : 

Horrible Death of a Lineman. 

The Wire's Fatal Grasp. 

One Martyr More. 

Wire Has Another Victim. 

The Electric Murderer. 

Another Lineman Roasted to Death. 

Electric Wire Slaughter. 

Again a Corpse in the Wires. 

Death's Riot. 

Electric Wires Add to Their List of Victims. 



THE STRUGGLE IN NEW YORK 145 

Abram S. Hewitt, Mayor of the city, was frantically 
besought to take the law into his own hands, if need 
be, and strip the wires from their places ; and a par- 
ticularly strenuous journal carried its denunciation 
of his inaction so far as to propose that he be arrested 
and locked up or fined as accessory to "a carnival of 
avoidable homicide." This line of agitation at first 
appeared to come almost wholly from inexpert or at 
least nonprofessional sources ; but presently arose 
one Harold P. Brown, an electrician by calling, who, 
not content with denouncing the survival of over- 
head wires in a great city, made the alternating cur- 
rent itself, wherever found or however used as a public 
utility, an object of attack. He obtained the use 
one day of a lecture room at the Columbia School of 
Mines, and issued invitations to a demonstration he 
was about to make of the difference between the 
death-dealing alternating current and the compara- 
tively harmless continuous current. He had in his 
audience representatives of the municipal Board of 
Electrical Control, several members of the Electrical 
Institute, and a goodly group of reporters for the press. 
After putting a big black dog to torture with applica- 
tions of an alternate current at various pressures, he 
dispatched the poor creature with a heavier shock, and 
was about to produce a fresh victim when the super- 
intendent of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty 
to Animals interfered. 

"You've demonstrated how many volts will kill 
a man," he exclaimed, "and that's enough. The 
show can't go on !" 

Brown protested, but to no avail ; so he left the 



146 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

audience to muse on his statement that in former 
tests, though he had applied a continuous current of 
more than fourteen hundred volts to a dog without 
producing death, he had repeatedly killed dogs with 
from five to eight hundred volts of an alternating 
current. The performance was most cleverly staged, 
and for the ends Brown had in view its sudden inter- 
ruption by a benevolent agent only heightened its 
spectacular effect. The sole suggestion of an anti- 
climax came when he issued a challenge to the unbe- 
lieving. 

"I am aware," said he, "that certain defenders of 
the alternating current declare that they have re- 
ceived a thousand volts without injury. Would 
any one present like to take a thousand volts?" 

One skeptic promptly responded that he had a 
friend there — an electrical expert — whom he would 
put forward to take a thousand volts of alternating 
current, if Brown would prove his faith by taking a 
thousand volts of continuous current. Brown de- 
clined on the ground that the proposal was foolish ; 
and, as the friend who had been offered for sacrifice 
on the altar of science seemed relieved at this retort, 
the discussion ended and the gathering dispersed, 
but not until Brown had oratorically declared that 
the only places where the alternating current ought 
to be permitted were " the dog pound, the slaughter 
house, and the State prison." This last suggestion 
derived a timely significance from the fact that the 
New York legislature had, but a few weeks before, 
amended the criminal code by the substitution of 
electricity for hanging as the death penalty, and 



THE STRUGGLE IN NEW YORK 147 

Mr. Brown had been one of the authorities most 
depended on by the special advocates of the change. 

Mr. Westinghouse and his friends took pains to 
make plain that they would welcome any practical 
plan for taking all wires out of the air and running 
them underground. The demands made upon Mayor 
Hewitt were met with the calm response that he 
would be most happy to remove all obstructions from 
the highways as soon as he could see his way clear to 
do so without producing more bad than good results ; 
and that, instead of trying to drive any particular 
electric system out of business, the more sensible 
course would be to retain the benefits of all for the 
public but subject their traffic to careful regula- 
tion. Still there was no silencing the complainants, 
whose continued assaults gradually wore upon the 
nerves of their adversaries. The atmosphere be- 
came, for a while, thick with the personalities, in- 
cluding charges of interested motives and even of 
bribery and fraud, volleyed back and forth between 
the champions of the respective systems. Nobody 
was spared. A letter written by ex-Governor Cornell 
to the Mayor, urging the absolute prohibition of high- 
tension circuits anywhere within the city limits, 
came in for some sarcastic comments at a convention 
of the National Electric Light Association held in 
New York late in the summer of 1888. 

Doctor P. H. Van der Weyde read a paper on the 
"Comparative Danger of the Alternating vs. Direct 
Currents" in which he declared that Brown's as- 
sumptions on this head were erroneous because the 
criterion on which he based his comparison was 



148 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

scientifically defective, and added that, while danger 
lurked in both, it was no greater in the alternating 
than in the continuous system. The convention 
attested its sympathy with this view by unanimously 
adopting, amid great applause, a series of resolutions 
condemning "the persistent efforts of rival interests 
to educate the public to a distrust of high-potential 
electric currents", as liable to instigate unfair legis- 
lation, and declaring it "entirely possible to pro- 
duce and distribute high-tension currents for pub- 
lic use without any more danger or difficulty than 
attends the distribution of gas and water in our 
dwellings." 

This unqualified assurance from an organization 
representing the highest electrical talent in America 
did not have its hoped-for effect upon the press, 
which, though quoting it with every mark of respect 
for the Association, continued to berate the alter- 
nating current and its promoters. One newspaper 
created a sensation in the slum districts, where pic- 
tures appealed much more to the popular emotions 
than any kind of reading matter, by spreading on 
its first page a hideous cartoon showing a graveyard, 
with headstones bearing the names of the victims of 
the wires who had already been buried, and an open 
grave, with a coffin beside it, waiting for the next on 
the list. Interviewers pursued Westinghouse where- 
ever he went, trying to lure him into some explosive 
utterance against Thomas A. Edison, the chief expo- 
nent of the continuous current, which might produce 
a personal collision between the two inventors, and 
thus set free a fund of spicy "copy." But on the 



THE STRUGGLE IN NEW YORK 149 

one or two occasions when he did consent to speak, 
nothing more violent than this was forthcoming : 

"The alternating current will kill people, of course. 
So will gunpowder, and dynamite, and whisky, and 
lots of other things ; but we have a system whereby 
the deadly electricity of the alternating current can 
do no harm unless a man is fool enough to swallow 
a whole dynamo." 

And in a letter to one paper which, though critical, 
had seemed inclined to be fair, he wrote : 

" The alternating current is less dangerous to life 
from the fact that the momentary reversal of direc- 
tion prevents decomposition of tissues, and injury 
can result only from the general effect of the shock ; 
whereas in a continuous current there is not only 
the injury from the latter cause, but a positive 
organic change from chemical decomposition, much 
more rapid and injurious in its effects. A large 
number of persons can be produced who have re- 
ceived a one-thousand volt shock from alternating 
currents without injury, and among them a wire- 
man who became insensible and held his hand in 
contact with the wires for a period of three minutes 
without fatal results — in fact, was able to go on 
with his work after a short period. . . . 

" The alternating system not only permits the use 
of a current of one thousand volts for street mains, 
but requires its conversion into currents of fifty volts 
or less for house-wiring. The converters are so con- 
structed that the primary or street current can never 
by any possibility enter the house. . . . No person 
coming in contact with the alternating current as 



150 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

used for domestic lighting would be aware of its 
presence." 

Even the most sober of the great periodicals were 
drawn into the controversy. An article on "The 
Dangers of Electric Lighting", arraigning the alter- 
nating current, by Thomas A. Edison, appeared in 
the North American Review, and "A Reply to Mr. 
Edison", by George Westinghouse, in the next 
month's number. 

It was characteristic of the temper and methods of 
the forces arrayed against him that no sooner were 
they convinced that Westinghouse was sincere in his 
desire for some practical plan for sinking the wires 
underground than they began to cry out that, though 
telephone and telegraph and other direct-current 
wires might be placed there with safety, the alternat- 
ing-current wires could not. A start had been made 
upon a scheme of electric-wire subways, but the con- 
tractors who had it in charge were so slow that the 
work came presently to what amounted to a dead 
standstill. In the midst of the turmoil Hugh J. 
Grant succeeded to the mayoralty, and his office 
became the storm-center of a tremendous struggle 
which lasted about two years, and was punctuated 
at intervals by court orders, injunctions, and counter- 
injunctions, and by raids made upon the overhead 
wires by gangs of municipal employees under orders 
to cut away all that were improperly insulated, 
obstructively hung, or otherwise liable to be dan- 
gerous. 

Many of the laborers employed in these forays, 
not being trained for their task, made costly mistakes 



THE STRUGGLE IN NEW YORK 151 

of indiscrimination, cutting inoffensive wires and 
severing important connections. As a result, the 
great city was left almost in darkness at times, as 
arrangements for going back to lighting the streets 
with gas were not easily perfected. But finally 
peace was restored on a basis which, if not to the 
entire satisfaction of all parties, at least permitted 
the subway system to be finished and the overhead 
wires transferred to it ; and, but for an occasional 
quarrel over rental privileges or the like, New York 
resumed its normal night illumination, and something 
like order settled down where chaos had reigned 
before. 

In view of the generally efficient electric service 
enjoyed by all cities now, and the enormous extent 
to which the alternating current has come to be used 
for lighting, cooking, running machinery large and 
small, and after-dark advertising, with comparative 
freedom from casualties, it is amusing to recall the 
dismal warnings put forth by as brilliant a man as 
Mr. Edison a generation ago. He was freely quoted 
in newspaper interviews as positive that no known 
method of insulation could render a high-tension 
alternating wire safe ; and that, as for subways, 
they would not lessen the danger, because the high- 
tension current would burn out the tubes and enter 
dwellings through the manholes. He insisted that 
if the alternating current were to be used at all in 
New York, its maximum pressure must be reduced 
to two hundred volts. Some of his more radical 
disciples went so far as to argue that to take the ob- 
noxious wires out of the upper air and run them 



152 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

through subways would only multiply the perils 
with which they menaced life and property. 

All this is, of course, so old a story now that we 
can afford to laugh over it without wasting further 
space on a rehearsal of details. One incident of the 
fight upon the alternating current, however, to which 
I have made but a casual allusion before, was too 
theatrical in character to be passed thus summarily. 
I refer to the adoption by the State of New York of 
what is commonly styled electrocution. 

The sensibilities of all humane people had been 
shocked so often by ill-managed hangings, that on 
Governor Hill's recommendation the Legislature of 
1886 created by statute a commission composed of 
three citizens conspicuous for their intelligence, 
philanthropy, and high character, to consider the 
question of a change in the method of executing the 
death penalty. These gentlemen spent more than 
a year on their inquiry, and then Elbridge T. Gerry, 
their chairman, presented a report in favor of using 
the alternating electric current, and an act to that 
effect was passed ; but coupled with the main pro- 
vision were several others' regarding the mode of 
confinement of the condemned person, his privileges 
in the death-ward, the discretionary hour of the 
execution, the functionaries who must witness it, 
and the silence which must be maintained by the 
press as to everything except the bare fact that such 
an event had occurred. 

At once arose a chorus of belated protests from 
persons who had ignored their opportunity to present 
their objections to the Commission or the Legislature. 



THE STRUGGLE IN NEW YORK 153 

Some criminal lawyers denounced the proposed 
punishment as "cruel" and "unusual" within the 
intent of the Constitutional prohibition ; a physician 
here and there voiced his judgment that the electric 
current shot through a human being would torture 
him fearfully before killing, and that at best its mor- 
tal effectiveness was open to question ; scores of 
sentimentalists censured the preliminary precau- 
tions and the provisions as to witnesses ; and most 
of the newspapers which had been accustomed to 
print long and elaborate accounts of hangings fell 
afoul of the restrictions on publicity. This pro- 
miscuous agitation prepared the popular mind for 
what was coming next — the announcement that 
Harold P. Brown had obtained a contract for fur- 
nishing the apparatus needed for disposing of the 
first malefactor doomed to suffer death under the 
new law. He was one William Kemmler, an ignorant 
and besotted creature, more brute than man, who, 
in a fit of anger, had hacked a dissolute woman to 
death with an ax. All the circumstances of the 
murder were so revolting that whatever was asso- 
ciated with it in any way seemed to suffer a taint 
from the contact, not excepting the instrument of 
death with which society proposed to avenge the 
crime. And then the further news came out that 
Mr. Brown had equipped not only the Auburn State 
prison, where Kemmler had been condemned to die, 
but Sing Sing and Clinton as well, with complete 
Westinghouse outfits, one of which, he said, had 
"already a record as a man-killer"; and that, ap- 
parently in order to escape the danger of a refusal 



154 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

if he tried to make his purchase direct, he had bought 
his apparatus of middlemen. The indignation of 
Westinghouse passed all bounds, but he kept its 
outward expression under strong control, and, be- 
yond a fresh refutation of the slurs cast at his system 
by falsehoods or half-truths, held his peace for a 
time to await events. 

Immediately after his sentence, Kemmler's attor- 
neys began a series of appeals which for industry 
and ingenuity have never been surpassed in their 
way. The challenge to the constitutionality of the 
new law was threshed out so completely that not a 
shred of doubt remained ; a canvass of the scientific 
question also was carried as far as the endurance of 
the courts could be stretched, and included a hearing 
before a referee, at which Edison and Brown were 
the star witnesses called to prove the deadliness of 
the alternating current. The battle for Kemmler's 
rescue even invaded the Legislature, where Newton 
M. Curtis, for half a lifetime a propagandist against 
judicial homicide, succeeded in pushing through the 
Assembly a bill to abolish capital punishment al- 
together in New York, but, the Senate refusing 
compliance, his efforts came to naught. 

As Kemmler was penniless, and the customary 
fees of lawyers like William Bourke Cockran and 
Roger M. Sherman were far from trifling, a suspicion 
gained place in the public mind for a season that 
Westinghouse stood with his purse behind these 
strenuous attempts to stay the hand of justice, in 
the hope of saving the offspring of his faith and cour- 
age from being "turned to hangman's uses." There 



THE STRUGGLE IN NEW YORK 155 

was never a shadow of evidence forthcoming, how- 
ever, to justify such an inference ; and when West- 
inghouse himself condescended to deny the rumor, 
that ended the matter. Every defensive resource, 
State or Federal, having been exhausted, sentence 
was pronounced for the third and last time, and on 
August 6, 1890, Kemmler was put to death in the 
electric chair. 

In his official report on the execution, Doctor 
Carlos F. MacDonald, the supervising physician, 
made the unqualified assertion that, in comparison 
with hanging, "electricity is infinitely preferable, 
both as regards the suddenness with which death is 
effected, and the expedition with which all the pre- 
liminary details may be arranged. ... In other 
words, it is the surest, quickest, and least painful 
method that has yet been devised." Such a verdict 
from such a source lulled the tumult except among a 
few representatives of the yellow press ; and, as soon 
as the sensational features of the case lost their 
popular appeal, nearly everybody passed from con- 
sidering arguments against tolerating the employ- 
ment of the alternating current for public utilities, 
to searching for new lines of industrial production 
or social convenience to which it could be applied. 



CHAPTER XII 
Origin of the "Stopper" Lamp 

The reader can hardly have failed to discover that 
the fertility of mind and the self-confidence which 
distinguished George Westinghouse were combined 
with a charm of personality that attracted men to 
him on short acquaintance, and a masterful quality 
to which they responded almost unconsciously with 
compliance. These traits made him not only the 
titular head of any enterprise he started, but sub- 
stantially a dictator in its management. As nearly 
everything industrial to which he laid his hand in- 
volved a large initial outlay, he made a practice of 
organizing corporations in which, while the stock- 
holders furnished the necessary funds for launching 
them and elected their boards of directors, he was 
before long the supreme figure. This system had 
its marked advantages as far as simplicity and ease 
of administration were concerned ; it had some 
equally marked drawbacks. Human nature is so 
constituted that the man who has succeeded in all 
his first endeavors is liable to acquire the notion 
that he is invincible, and to be led into ventures 
beyond his strength. 

Such was the case with Westinghouse. By the 
spring of 1890 he was in control of concerns which 



ORIGIN OF THE "STOPPER" LAMP 157 

were manufacturing air brakes and switch and signal 
apparatus for steam railroads; making pioneer ex- 
periments with electric railways for local traffic; 
furnishing natural gas to a large district tributary 
to Pittsburgh ; running small industrial plants that 
could utilize the gas effectively; turning out every 
kind of mechanism for the generation and distribu- 
tion of the alternating electric current ; and furnish- 
ing electric illumination to communities in all the 
American States and Territories and in various other 
parts of both hemispheres, even the Chinese city of 
Canton having contracted for an equipment. In 
four years the total annual sales of the appliances 
produced by his Electric Company had grown from 
one hundred and fifty thousand to four million dollars. 
Although the unwholesome trade situation which 
was developing in the country at large had not yet 
reached its crucial stage, it was already threatening 
enough to cause uneasiness in many minds. In the 
midst of a violent agitation of the silver question in 
the United States, news suddenly came from England 
of the collapse of the great banking house of the 
Baring Brothers, carrying down a bevy of lesser 
concerns and spreading everywhere a fear of worse 
things still to come. Mr. Westinghouse, who had 
run up to Lenox, Massachusetts, to attend to a real 
estate purchase there, was summoned back to Pitts- 
burgh by telegraph. He realized at once that the 
Electric Company was facing a crisis. His first act 
was to call together the directors and lay before them 
a scheme of relief which involved, as a preliminary 
feature, the change of the title of their corporation 



158 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

to the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing 
Company, and the doubling of its capital stock. 
The old shareholders were given the privilege of sub- 
scribing to the stock at a price twenty per cent below 
par, but general commercial conditions were so 
depressing that the response fell far short of what 
he had hoped. He thereupon invited the leading 
bankers of Pittsburgh, who had profited by the busi- 
ness brought them through the industries he had 
built up in the city or had attracted thither from 
the outside, to meet him for an informal talk. A 
good many came ; but several on whom he had most 
surely counted failed him — one going so far as to 
confess to a friend that he dared not expose himself 
to the persuasive influence of Westinghouse face to 
face, for fear of yielding to impulse and granting a 
loan which he would afterward regret. 

The meeting opened with a brief review by West- 
inghouse of his connection with local institutions, 
laying special stress on the growth of his Electric 
Company, which, in spite of its temporary embar- 
rassment, was destined for a career of unparalleled 
prosperity. Then he set the sum he must have at 
once at a half-million dollars, offering collateral se- 
curity for such an accommodation, including a mort- 
gage on his estate at Homewood, which had largely 
increased in value since its purchase nearly twenty 
years before. So favorable an impression did he 
create that the bankers appointed a committee to 
go over the whole subject and report at an adjourned 
meeting. The report was favorable, and in a short 
time the half -million desired was oversubscribed. 



ORIGIN OF THE "STOPPER" LAMP 159 

But just at this point one of the subscribers suggested 
that, if they were going to pull the company out of 
its trouble, they ought to have something to say 
about its conduct thenceforward till it had discharged 
its debt to them. "Mr. Westinghouse wastes so 
much on experimentation, and pays so liberally for 
whatever he wishes in the way of service and patent 
rights," said the speaker, "that we are taking a pretty 
large risk if we give him a free hand with the fund he 
has asked us to raise. We ought at least to know 
what he is doing with our money." 
• This proposal checked the rising tide, and a second 
committee was appointed to devise a form of con- 
tract which would bind Westinghouse to share with 
the bankers his knowledge, and to some degree his 
direction, of his Company's affairs. A new program 
was drawn up, making the loan contingent upon the 
bankers' right to name the general manager, and 
Westinghouse was invited in and asked whether it 
was satisfactory. With great positiveness, but with- 
out any show of resentment, he immediately an- 
swered that the concession demanded was too vital 
for him to consider, and candidly stated his reasons. 
The bankers expressed their willingness to make a 
few modifications of their plan, but, as none of these 
covered his objections, there was some further dis- 
cussion, and it seemed probable that, if the meeting 
continued much longer, he would be able to get the 
money on his own terms ; for he clung so firmly to 
the view that, after all he had done for Pittsburgh, 
it was only fair that Pittsburgh should do him a 
good turn when he needed it, as to put compromise 



160 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

out of the question. After a little more futile talk, 
he announced that he must have a final answer then 
and there. The bankers gave him one — a flat re- 
fusal. Realizing what this meant to him, they 
waited almost breathlessly to note its effect. To 
their astonishment, instead of being staggered, he 
rose with a smile, remarking; "Well, thank God 
I know the worst at last!" And waiting only long 
enough to tell them a humorous story in illustration 
of the unburdening of his mind, he bade them good 
day and walked out of the room. 

That night he took train for New York, and in the 
morning strode into the banking district there, 
where his personal acquaintance was limited, and the 
affairs of the Electric and Manufacturing Company 
were practically unknown. But every one knew 
George Westinghouse by reputation, and the fame of 
his inventions, large as it had become, was not wider 
than the fame of his resourcefulness and integrity 
in business. 

The results of this errand to the great financial 
center took several months to mature, but they were 
momentous, and turned what had seemed a deadly 
misfortune into an opening for a new and better 
future. The banking house of August Belmont and 
Company took the lead in forming a financial syndi- 
cate so strong as to command universal confidence. 
Two electric lighting companies — the United States 
and the Consolidated — which had for some time 
been controlled by the Westinghouse interests under 
lease, were absorbed into the combination, and their 
stockholders allowed to exchange their present hold- 



ORIGIN OF THE "STOPPER" LAMP 161 

ings for the new shares of the Westinghouse Electric 
and Manufacturing Company, preferred and com- 
mon in certain proportions, while the stockholders 
of the dominating corporation were asked to sur- 
render forty per cent of their old stock and take 
second preference shares in the reorganized company 
in lieu of the remainder. The net result was the 
reduction of a total outstanding liability of more than 
ten million dollars, with annual interest charges ex- 
ceeding one hundred eighty thousand dollars, to 
less than nine million dollars, all in stock — thanks 
to a voluntary sacrifice on the part of the stockholders 
and the willingness of the bankers and creditors con- 
cerned to take preferred shares in an enterprise of which 
the success must depend almost wholly on one man. 

This triumph, gratifying as it was, did not stir the 
sensibilities of Westinghouse half so deeply as the 
conduct of the employees of his original Electric 
Company, who, as soon as they learned of the trouble 
he was in, had come to him with the proposal to 
work for half pay till he could get upon his feet again. 
Another incident which had warmed his heart was 
a visit from T. A. Gillespie, the contractor who drilled 
his first gas well and had done a good deal of work for 
him in the past, and whose latest bills were still un- 
paid. Mr. Gillespie called not only to say that these 
obligations might be indefinitely postponed, but to 
offer a loan of thousands of dollars that very day if 
it would help any. Westinghouse declined all such 
tenders, but they were not the less pleasing to him 
as evidence of the esteem in which he was held by 
men who knew him best on his human side. 



162 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

It seemed at that period as if every aspiring in- 
ventor who hit upon, or dreamed of, a new idea in 
electric lamps, made it his first business to hunt up 
Westinghouse as a possible customer. A favorite 
object of the vagaries of such persons was the fila- 
ment to be used for incandescent lighting, since a 
poor one was liable to break with the slightest jar, 
and even one otherwise good might not endure sub- 
jection to the current for any length of time. One 
lamp, the patent rights for which were acquired 
through the purchase of the Sawyer- Man Company, 
formed the basis of expensive lawsuits in the United 
States courts, culminating in the defeat of Westing- 
house, the sole important result of the litigation 
being to demonstrate which of the features in con- 
troversy were already public property. His ad- 
versaries in this fight were the Edison interests which 
later formed the nucleus of the General Electric 
Company; and, as they had given him so much 
trouble in New York, it is not unreasonable to 
suppose that there may have been a bit of the 
tit-for-tat spirit animating his entrance upon a 
contest with them in another and more broadly 
conspicuous field. 

The Columbian Exposition, a World's Fair de- 
signed to celebrate the four-hundredth anniversary 
of the discovery of America, was announced to be 
held in Chicago in 1893, the postponement of a year 
from the appropriate date being deemed advisable 
because of the pendency of a Presidential campaign. 
Sealed proposals had been invited for lighting the 
fair grounds by electricity, and all the lighting com- 



ORIGIN OF THE "STOPPER" LAMP 163 

panies realized that the job would afford exceptional 
advertising opportunities to the contractor whose 
work should be projected for six months against so 
artistic a background of architecture, landscape 
gardening, and water effects. It was the greatest 
single undertaking in its line that had ever been at- 
tempted in this country ; by common consent there 
were only two concerns competent to handle it, the 
General Electric Company and the Westinghouse 
Electric and Manufacturing Company ; and it was 
generally understood that the latter was not among 
the bidders. 

When the bids were opened in April, 1892, it was 
found that the several companies of the General 
Electric group had put in figures ranging from $13.98 
to $18.51 per light. But there was also another 
bidder whom nobody would have suspected of the 
temerity to compete with these powerful interests. 
He was Charles F. Locksteadt, president of the South 
Side Machine and Metal Works of Chicago, and his 
offer was $5.49 per light. The big concerns stood 
aghast. Who was this intruder? Could any one 
of consequence vouch for his responsibility? Who 
would manufacture the apparatus for him ? 

Mr. Locksteadt approached Mr. Westinghouse, 
hoping to interest him in the situation, and in due 
course the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing 
Company advised the officials of the Columbian 
Exposition that it would undertake to carry out the 
Locksteadt bid. After considerable negotiation it 
was agreed that new bids be called for. On opening 
these a bid from the Westinghouse interests of $5.25 



164 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

per light was found the lowest on the list, and West- 
inghouse was awarded the contract. 

It was, in the judgment of not a few of his friends 
familiar with the circumstances, a reckless dive in 
the dark ; and in strict truth it was a profitless ven- 
ture if the only question to be taken into account 
were its immediate return in dollars and cents. But 
the inventor's imagination had leaped far enough 
ahead for him to realize that this was the opportu- 
nity of a lifetime for introducing his products to the 
notice of the whole world, and, as usual, what he paid 
for such an advantage was a secondary consideration. 

After the contract had been signed and sealed, he 
was faced with a fresh puzzle. He could manufacture 
all the rest of the equipment needed, but where was 
he to look for his lamps ? The Edison combination, 
of course, would not sell him any, and they had the 
patent rights on the only all-glass-globe incandescent 
lamp in existence. Though the validity of these 
rights was then a subject of litigation in the federal 
courts, the decision of the final appeal was probably 
close at hand, with all the probabilities favoring 
affirmation. Plainly, the only thing the contractor 
could do was to devise some new kind of globe or 
bulb, which, even if not so good as the Edison globe, 
would suffice for his present purpose. 

What his ingenuity presently evolved was the 
"stopper" lamp — so called because, instead of the 
one-piece bulb invented by Edison, it was made in 
two pieces, the one that contained the wire fitting 
into the mouth of the bulb-shaped one as a cork fits 
into the mouth of a bottle. Of course, with only 



ORIGIN OF THE "STOPPER" LAMP 165 

such a plug to depend upon, it might prove impossible 
to exclude the air for long. If so, it would be neces- 
sary to renew the bulbs frequently, and this would 
have to be done by hand at a heavy aggregate cost. 
But such difficulties were negligible by comparison 
with the great end to be gained, and the inventor 
plunged into his task with zeal. He found that he 
could use soft iron where the Edison lamp used 
platinum, and in other ways reduce largely the cost 
of his bulbs. Substantially all the mechanism used 
in making the new lamps had to be specially designed, 
and he took a short cut by setting up a glass factory 
in Allegheny, whither he used to go daily while at 
home, to instruct the operatives in running the 
grinding machines so as to make the stoppers as 
nearly as possible a perfect fit. 

The conclusive decision in the all-glass-globe lamp 
patent suit was in favor of Edison as expected. It 
was handed down on December 15, 1892, but, thanks 
to the new invention, caused no disturbance in the 
plans of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufac- 
turing Company for carrying out the World's Fair 
contract. An incident did occur, however, which 
illustrates the dramatic guise the merest chance 
may assume. 

George Westinghouse was in New York City for 
the Christmas season, and on the afternoon of the 
twenty-third of December happened to take an up- 
bound elevated train in company with his friend and 
legal adviser Charles A. Terry. In their car they 
encountered Grosvenor P. Lowrey, chief counsel 
for the Edison Electric Light Company in patent 



166 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

matters, and took seats next to him. During the con- 
versation that ensued, Mr. Lowrey dropped a casual 
remark which indicated that Frederick P. Fish, 
another of the Edison, lawyers, was that day in Pitts- 
burgh. Immediately Westinghouse began to pay 
close attention to what the speaker was saying, 
and made two or three half-questioning comments, 
which in turn appeared to cause Mr. Lowrey some 
embarrassment, as if it had suddenly struck him that 
perhaps he had been more communicative than was 
wise. At Fourteenth Street, Westinghouse rose, 
quietly motioned to Terry to do likewise, and the 
two excused themselves to Lowrey and quitted the 
train. 

Hardly were they alone together on the platform 
when Westinghouse plumped at Terry the question : 
"What is Fish doing in Pittsburgh?" 

Terry was unable, of course, to offer more than a 
guess in response. Both recalled the fact that some 
of their people had met Fish in New York the day 
before, and were sure that he uttered no hint of an 
intended visit to Pittsburgh. 

" I can't conceive what Would call him there," said 
Westinghouse, "except to make some new trouble 
for us. We shall have to act quickly to head it off, 
whatever it is. I wish you'd hunt up Curtis and 
Kerr at once and let them get to work." Thomas B. 
Kerr and Leonard E. Curtis had been his counsel 
throughout his lamp litigation. 

Finding that Curtis had gone to his home in 
Englewood for the night, Terry sought him there 
and related the story of the meeting on the train and 



ORIGIN OF THE "STOPPER" LAMP 167 

what had developed from it. Instantly Curtis put 
himself in touch by wire with George H. Christy, a 
professional colleague in Pittsburgh, warning him 
to look out for whatever was in the wind. 

The next morning when Mr. Fish entered the 
United States Circuit Court Room in Pittsburgh, 
where Judge Acheson was to hold chambers, he was 
surprised to find Christy seated within the bar. 
After a brief and rather tense interval of silence, he 
turned to Christy with the inquiry : 

"Have you a case on this morning?" 

"Nothing on the calendar," answered Christy 
blandly ; "but I thought I might possibly have some- 
thing to attend to, so I was just sitting around to 
await events." 

The two lawyers looked each other over with a 
poor affectation of indifference. Christy was still 
not quite sure what the other lawyer was there for, 
though he had his suspicions ; while the latter's eyes 
wandered warily toward a package of papers in 
Christy's hands, of which he obviously did not like 
the appearance. Neither had long to wait for larger 
knowledge. Judge Acheson, immediately after the 
formal opening of the court, called up a few held-over 
items of business, and in a moment the secret was 
out. The Edison Company's counsel had, it ap- 
peared, on the day before, applied for a restraining 
order to prevent the Westinghouse Electric and 
Manufacturing Company from selling, or otherwise 
disposing of, its electric lamps, charging it with bad 
faith in resorting to a technical subterfuge to evade 
the injunction against the Sawyer-Man lamp. He 



168 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

had hoped to obtain such a restraining order on his 
presentation of the case ; the Judge had expressed 
a reluctance to issue the order till the other side could 
be heard, but had yielded to counsel's urgency so far 
as to consent to take the matter under consideration 
over night. As a result of Christy's presentation of 
the facts in the case, the matter was laid over till 
after Christmas, when the accused company not only 
satisfied the Court that it was guiltless of any at- 
tempt at evasion, but followed up its advantage by 
producing a set of blue prints to show the details of 
the construction and operation of the stopper-lamp, 
which made it plain that this constituted no infringe- 
ment of the Edison lamp patents. Although more or 
less harassing warfare was kept up afterward, this 
unexpected proceeding in court so far cleared the way 
for Westinghouse that he was able to proceed with 
the manufacture of his lamps and carry out his great 
undertaking at Chicago. 

As I have suggested, the whole dramatic incident 
developed from mere chance. Had not Westing- 
house and Terry taken the car they did that after- 
noon, they would not have met Lowrey. Had not 
Lowrey felt confident that Fish had succeeded in his 
plan that morning, he would have been too cautious 
to let drop the remark which caught Westinghouse's. 
special attention. Above all, but for the wizard-like 
keenness of Westinghouse, this remark might have 
passed as casually as the rest of the conversation. 
Repeated applications for injunctions, even though 
ultimately unsuccessful, would have hampered and 
delayed his work on the Fair grounds, and rendered 



ORIGIN OF THE "STOPPER" LAMP 169 

impossible the first illumination on the date fixed in 
the contract. This would have damaged the credit 
of his company, and it had been a matter of pride 
with him to prove to the world that since its re- 
organization it was once more firmly on its feet. 

When the World's Fair opened on the 1st of May, 
1893, the Westinghouse lighting plant was one of the 
few very large installations that was complete and 
in place. It included twelve dynamos ten feet high 
and weighing about seventy-five tons apiece, con- 
structed on the Tesla multiphase system. Popular 
interest was divided between these giant machines, 
the largest of their kind up to that time, and the 
switchboard. The latter was made of one thousand 
square feet of marble and divided into three sections, 
reached by galleries with spiral iron stairways. It 
operated forty circuits, so articulated that, if a break 
occurred in any circuit, another could be instantly 
substituted to do its work. The switchboard con- 
trolled two hundred and fifty thousand incandescent 
lamps of sixteen candle power, only one hundred 
and eighty thousand of which were to be used at one 
time, the remaining seventy thousand being a reserve 
against emergencies. What astonished visitors most, 
perhaps, was to see this elaborate mechanism handled 
by one man, who was constantly in touch, by tele- 
phone or messenger, with every part of the grounds, 
and responded to requests of all sorts by the mere 
turning of a switch. 

The Fair lasted six months. It was illuminated 
every night, and with a success which received an 
extraordinary tribute. The currency panic of 1893 



170 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

had swept over the country and combined with a 
number of other adverse conditions to reduce re- 
ceipts ; but the management, though badly put to 
it at times to make both ends meet, decided that, 
whoever else might have to wait, there was one 
creditor whose bills they must promptly meet, since 
by his enterprise and courage he had saved them a 
round million dollars : that one was George Westing- 
house. A special arrangement was therefore made, 
whereby he was to be paid a certain sum weekly from 
the current receipts. When the panic was passing 
through its most acute stage, and the banks were 
refusing to cash checks because they had nothing to 
cash them with, the treasury of the Fair handed over 
to the local representative of the Westinghouse 
Electric and Manufacturing Company large quan- 
tities of dollars and half-dollars and quarters, which 
were shipped directly to Pittsburgh, and used to pay 
off the workmen in the shops at a time when cur- 
rency was commanding five per cent premium. 



CHAPTER XIII 

From Niagara to the Navy 

Great as the World's Fair undertaking was, 
George Westinghouse was soon to be called to lend 
a hand at one far greater — the harnessing of 
Niagara's waters for the industrial uses of mankind ; 
and the demonstration he made at Chicago may have 
played no small part in the creation of this oppor- 
tunity. 

From their discovery by white explorers early in 
the sixteenth century, the falls of Niagara had com- 
monly been regarded as a scenic wonder rather than 
as a potential agent of utility. Now and then, as 
the era of mechanical invention advanced, would 
arise a prophet venturesome enough to talk about a 
day when this and other great cataracts would be 
made to turn mill wheels and thus help feed the 
world ; but such prognostications rarely inspired 
any one to attempt their fulfillment ; and although 
between 1847 and 1861 sundry owners of land bor- 
dering on the Niagara River diverted water for hy- 
draulic power purposes on a considerable scale, their 
experiments proved financially unsuccessful, and 
little more thought was spent on the subject for a 
number of years. Meanwhile the neighborhood of 
the falls had suffered so at the hands of vandals that 



172 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

the State government had interfered for the protec- 
tion of its natural beauties by condemning enough 
private property to make them the center of a public 
reservation. 

In 1886 Thomas Evershed of Rochester, a division 
engineer on the Erie Canal, prepared plans for a 
tunnel about a mile and a half long, running under- 
neath the town of Niagara Falls and parallel to the 
river above the falls. Near the upper end of the 
tunnel, canals or shafts were to take water from the 
river and carry it to pits, in which, at a depth of 
150 feet, were to be placed turbine wheels for supply- 
ing power. Having served the purpose of turning 
the wheels, the water would pass into the tunnel, 
and be carried down to its mouth a short distance 
below the falls. Factories were to be built within 
easy reach of the power. And all this would be 
possible without impairing the picturesqueness of 
the landscape. 

Evershed's diagrams and figures attracted much 
notice in the vicinage, where several well-to-do resi- 
dents undertook to raise the sum needed to construct 
the canals, pits, and tunnel, and install the wheels 
and other machinery. As a preliminary, they or- 
ganized the Niagara Falls Power Company and ob- 
tained a charter from the State legislature. But 
the millions required were not readily obtainable in 
Western New York, and the project had begun to 
droop when it occurred to William Rankine, a young 
lawyer, to lay his documents and sketches before 
Francis Lynde Stetson of New York City, a pro- 
fessional friend with a large clientele among men of 



FROM NIAGARA TO THE NAVY 173 

wealth. Before their interview was over, Stetson 
was so impressed that he took the papers and agreed 
to see what he could do. 

In his turn, he opened negotiations with several 
clients of large means like Darius O. Mills, J. Pierpont 
Morgan, Edward D. Adams, and Hamilton McK. 
Twombley. All recognized it as a serious enterprise, 
and attended with many uncertainties, so far ahead 
was it of anything of the kind that had been at- 
tempted, but they concluded to give it their support. 
As it was important that whatever favorable results 
might be obtained should accrue primarily to the 
projectors, an eligible tract of land adjacent to the 
river was purchased and laid out for factory sites and 
a model village ; and the Cataract Construction 
Company was organized to finance and execute the 
plans finally decided upon. 

These plans, it was assumed, would in the main be 
Evershed's ; but experts in various parts of the world 
were to be called upon to go over them item by item 
and advise the Company what modifications, if any, 
were desirable. Up to that point the broad question 
was still open, whether the utilization of Niagara 
power could best be accomplished by hydraulic, 
pneumatic, or electric agencies. In June, 1890, 
Mr. Adams, who, with his engineering adviser, 
Doctor Coleman Sellers of Philadelphia, had been 
passing a good deal of time in London discussing the 
general subject with English and foreign technolo- 
gists, organized the so-called International Niagara 
Commission, with power to award twenty- two 
thousand dollars in prizes for the most useful ideas. 



174 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

The commission, which had for its chairman Sir 
William Thomson, later raised to the peerage as 
Lord Kelvin, for its secretary Professor William Caw- 
thorne Unwin, Dean of the Central Institute of 
Guilds of the City of London, and in its membership 
men of such eminence as Doctor Sellers, Lieutenant 
Colonel Theodore Turretini of Geneva, and Professor 
E. Mascart of the College of France, invited the 
British Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing 
Company and sundry other large concerns to submit 
competitive plans, the principal prize offered being 
three thousand dollars. Lewis B. Stillwell of the 
American company, who chanced to be in London 
at the time, believed that the polyphase alternating 
current system offered the most practical key to the 
situation, and was anxious to get permission to put 
in a bid for the British company, but Westinghouse 
refused, explaining later that the prize offered was 
an entirely inadequate sum to pay for one hundred 
thousand dollars' worth of advice, and adding : 
"When the Niagara people are ready to do business, 
we shall make them a proposal." 

The Electric and Manufacturing Company had 
been sadly hampered in its commercial development 
of the polyphase system during 1890 and 1891 by the 
financial difficulties with which it had to contend, 
but in 1892 it constructed two one-hundred-fifty- 
horse-power rotary converters, and Westinghouse 
invited the Cataract Construction Company to send 
its engineers to Pittsburgh to inspect and test these 
machines. Doctor Sellers and Professor Henry A. 
Rowland responded, and George Forbes, one of the 



FROM NIAGARA TO THE NAVY 175 

foremost electricians of England, came at another 
time. All three were much impressed — especially 
Forbes, who more than a year before had put himself 
on record, in connection with the submission of a 
project covering the engineering work on the new 
enterprise, in favor of using the alternating current. 
But even so eminent an authority was unable to 
bring the rest of the Construction Company's ad- 
visers to his view, and at the outset all voted to con- 
demn and reject the alternating system, except 
Forbes himself and an electrician from Buda-Pesth. 
Forbes never wavered for a moment, and finally 
turned the tide of preference by proving the pro- 
hibitive cost of a continuous current installation. 
Of the whole group of experts consulted, Lord Kelvin 
was the only one who still held out in opposition. 
Some time afterward he cabled the Construction 
Company, reasserting his loyalty to his original judg- 
ment, but admitting that the company "could cer- 
tainly succeed with the alternating current." And 
still later, when practical trials had proved his ap- 
prehensions vain, he candidly confessed that the 
alternating current ''alone solves the problem well 
and economically." 

On October 24, 1893, as the result of a spirited 
competition with the General Electric Company, the 
Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company 
was awarded a contract for three mammoth gen- 
erators. Westinghouse took a very active part per- 
sonally in the direction of the work at Pittsburgh, 
and in less than eighteen months the first five-thou- 
sand-horse-power turbo-alternator unit operated by 



176 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

hydraulic power was in place and in working order, 
with a capacity which proved capable of doing even 
more than the contract called for, yielding five 
thousand, one hundred thirty-five horse power — 
nearly three per cent above the demand. 

Meanwhile, in the access of enthusiasm which fol- 
lowed the assurance that something had at last been 
begun toward utilizing power from the Niagara River, 
all central New York gave itself up for a time to a 
revel in electric promotion. Companies were or- 
ganized on every side to buy and sell locally the 
power which was to be transmitted from the falls, 
and plans were drawn for the storage stations which 
were to serve as media in the scheme. A message 
of Governor Flower to the legislature had advocated, 
in the interest of economical transportation, the 
substitution of electricity for draft mules as a motive 
power on the Erie Canal, and a law had been passed 
appropriating ten thousand dollars for experimenta- 
tion in this field. The State Superintendent of Public 
Works negotiated with Westinghouse for an equip- 
ment for a first test, to cost five thousand dollars if 
necessary, the State and the inventor dividing the 
expense equally between them. Trolley wires were 
strung along the banks, and, as the Niagara project 
was still all on paper, power for the test was obtained 
from the Rochester street railway company. 

On May 18, 1893, an old canal boat, fitted with 
apparatus like that on a trolley car, was started for 
a demonstrative trip of one mile. It passed through 
locks and around curves, making an average rate of 
about five miles an hour, or within one mile of the 



FROM NIAGARA TO THE NAVY 177 

lawful speed limit on canals. The Governor, several 
other State officers, and prominent citizens, as well 
as Westinghouse and some of his leading subordi- 
nates, were passengers, and nearly all pronounced 
the case for electric propulsion well proved. But 
there remained a few doubters who protested that, 
after a boat had been drawn by trolley from Buffalo 
to the Hudson River, it must still be towed down 
to New York. This criticism having been duly 
threshed out, the thoughts of every one were diverted 
from trolley propulsion to individual motors, and 
gradually, after a period of fruitless experiments, 
interest in the canal project died of inanition. The 
Niagara enterprise prospered, however, and for years 
thereafter the Power Company was a frequent cus- 
tomer of the Westinghouse Electric and Manu- 
facturing Company, which installed unit after unit 
until ten huge generators were in place, with an 
aggregate capacity of fifty-five thousand horse power. 
Of what has grown out of these beginnings, a few 
figures will give us a suggestion. Today there are 
power houses on the American and Canadian sides 
having a combined capacity already installed of 
over two hundred thousand, with additional plants 
under construction. By means of transformers situ- 
ated near the power houses, and the use of overhead 
and subway lines according to their respective 
adaptation, electricity is distributed for lighting, 
power, and heating purposes over nearly the entire 
western and middle parts of New York State, and 
as far east as Syracuse. Development has not yet 
ceased, and although restricted to some degree by 



178 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

legislation, no one would venture now to define the 
lengths to which it may go before it ceases. The city 
of Niagara Falls, which contained about ten thousand 
population when ground was first broken for the 
mammoth power enterprise, has now thirty-five 
thousand, and in the same interval its real estate 
has increased in assessed valuation from seven mil- 
lion to thirty-two million dollars. Most of this 
advance can reasonably be attributed to the influence, 
direct and indirect, of the industrial awakening due 
to the Niagara power enterprise. In what measure 
the neighboring communities affected have profited 
likewise is less readily determined, as they have had 
other resources than the great waterfall to draw upon. 
As an illustration of the versatility of Westing- 
house's mind, it is worth noting that, in the midst 
of all the hubbub attendant upon the reorganization 
of his Electric company, the crisis in the lamp con- 
troversy, the lighting of the World's Fair, and the 
installations at Niagara, he never became so absorbed 
in any of these concerns as to let his interest slacken 
in others. His experience in building up a natural 
gas industry in Pittsburgh had moved him to study 
the possibilities of the production of economical 
power by the use of a gas engine, since its efficiency 
as a prime mover when using natural gas was far 
superior to that of the best steam engines of that 
period. Even with a manufactured fuel gas, con- 
taining less heat than natural gas, there was a decided 
advantage in respect to the cost of fuel when used in 
a gas engine. But gas engines had not then been 
designed of sufficient size to meet the requirements 



FROM NIAGARA TO THE NAVY 179 

for large powers necessary for their advantageous 
use, particularly for the production of electricity, 
and their speed regulation was not sufficiently ac- 
curate to produce the uniform rotary motion neces- 
sary for the production of electric current. In his 
usual energetic and comprehensive manner, he de- 
signed and successfully built gas engines of more than 
three hundred horse power with a system of regulation 
that furnished a uniform rotative speed, thus solving 
the problem of the successful production of electric 
current by gas-engine power. The gas-engine de- 
velopment ultimately resulted in the manufacture, 
by the Westinghouse Machine Company, of engines 
of more than five thousand horse power that found 
their principal uses in blast furnaces and rolling mills. 

Westinghouse had given a great deal of attention 
to the subject of the manufacture of fuel gas from 
coal, and in connection with the gas-engine develop- 
ment he designed and built experimentally many 
forms of gas producers, seeking to develop a type 
that would make gas from soft coal by a process 
which avoided the many difficulties arising from the 
by-products and impurities contained in the coal. 
As the result of years of effort, he finally evolved a 
form that met demands in a very practical way. In 
his larger effort, however, to discover a process for 
manufacturing gas at a cost and of a quality that 
could be profitably sold and distributed in competi- 
tion with coal for heating and power purposes, he 
was not successful. 

A notion Westinghouse kept in mind in perfecting 
the gas engine was that it would one day supplant 



i8o GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

the steam engine because of its great fuel economy, 
comparative freedom from offensive qualities, and 
the ease with which, in connection with apparatus 
for generating and conveying an electric current, 
the engine and producer could be placed wherever 
coal could most conveniently be received and stored. 
He thought that by setting up generating stations, 
with gas engines, at intervals of ten or twenty miles, 
long railroads could be run by electricity ; and an 
electric locomotive capable of hauling twenty or 
thirty cars could thus be operated by one man, with 
a current simultaneously used for lighting tracks, 
running machinery and shops, pumping water, 
handling freight at stations, lighting and heating 
trains, and the like. 

The subject of electrifying street railroads, also, 
strongly stirred his interest at this juncture. The 
popular demand for rapid transit was loud in every 
large city. Cable lines had fallen into disfavor; 
overhead trolleys were unsightly, and no satisfactory 
underground system had yet been reduced to what 
seemed reasonable bounds of cost. But an unper- 
fected invention had been brought to his notice 
which he spent a good deal of time and thought in 
developing. It was commonly known as the " button 
system", because its visible factors were the button- 
like heads of iron pins which appeared in pairs at 
seven-foot intervals between the tracks, raised a 
trifle above the surface of the roadway. Every pair 
were connected with electrical conductors, leading to 
electro-magnetic switches alongside of the track, 
which in their turn were connected with a main 



FROM NIAGARA TO THE NAVY 181 

electric line laid in a conduit just beneath the pave- 
ment and fed from a power station like a trolley. 
Under every car were carried two iron bars, projecting 
from its bottom like the prongs of a tuning fork ; 
and only when these bars were in contact with two 
corresponding buttons was the circuit completed 
that propelled the car. At all other times the buttons 
were inert and harmless. The button system had 
the advantage of the underground trolley now so 
widely used, that it required no greater depth of 
excavation than the ties. 

While he was studying this device, the directors 
of the Manhattan Elevated Railway system began 
discussing the question of changing its motive power 
from steam to electricity, and a majority inclined 
strongly to such a change if they could have any 
assurance of what would be the wisest plan of elec- 
trification to adopt. Westinghouse was consulted 
by Russell Sage, but, firmly as he believed that elec- 
trification of all railways was coming in due season, 
he was loath to advise an early change. Just what 
he had in mind in discouraging immediate action 
did not at once appear, though later he brought out 
his idea of using gas engines for running the gener- 
ators. The matter was postponed as he suggested ; 
a few years afterward it was taken up with him again, 
he having in the interval received a contract for 
equipping an underground trolley for the Third 
Avenue surface railway, which had been run by cable. 
When the Manhattan directors had finally decided 
what they wanted, they called upon him to submit 
plans for the heavy generating machinery for a new 



182 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

power house, and for the apparatus for substations. 
Other large manufacturers and contractors were in- 
vited to do the same ; but the Westinghouse plans, 
after a searching analysis by a board of engineering 
experts, were accepted as the best offered, and won 
the award of a contract mounting well up into the 
millions, and calling among other things for eight 
three-phase alternating generators of six thousand 
six hundred fifty horse-power capacity apiece — 
the largest ever constructed till then. The alter- 
nating current was to be conveyed from the main 
power house to the substations, and there reduced 
by step-down converters to a direct current of five 
hundred volts for feeding to a third rail. 

The third rail never found an enthusiastic cham- 
pion in Westinghouse. Though appreciating its 
great possibilities as a means of propelling trains, he 
was always mindful of its menace to human life. 
Since it was going to be used in any event, he sug- 
gested its division into sections, with provisions for 
the automatic supply of the requisite current to 
these in turn, as the train moved. Even with such 
precautions he regarded the rail as only a dangerous 
makeshift, and insisted that what the elevated roads 
ought to have done was to use the overhead trolley 
instead — ■ not the fragile and disfiguring construction 
too commonly met with, but a substantially built 
line, of inoffensive appearance. The managers of 
the Manhattan railway were not ready to credit his 
apprehensions. Time has pretty well demonstrated 
that this was one of the rare instances where his 
matured judgment in the electrical manufacturing 



FROM NIAGARA TO THE NAVY 183 

field was at fault ; and to this day the third rail con- 
tinues the Manhattan's sole dependence for motive 
power. 

In spite of activities such as these, Westinghouse 
still found time to examine the merits of a type of 
steam turbine developed by the Honorable Charles 
Algernon Parsons of London, and ultimately obtained 
authority to manufacture under the Parsons patents 
in the United States. It will be recalled that the 
first invention patented by Westinghouse was a 
rotary engine, and throughout his life, until the last 
ten or twelve years, he devoted much time and 
thought as well as large sums of money to an effort 
to produce an engine of the rotary type that would 
meet his ideals with respect to efficiency, simplicity, 
and cheap production. His efforts did not cease 
until he became interested in the steam turbine, in 
which he recognized a form of rotary steam engine 
that solved his problem of so many years. 

In its earlier stages, the Parsons turbine had been 
used to drive electric generators for the purpose of 
lighting ships, and, about the time that Westinghouse 
procured the foreign rights, Parsons had fitted a 
vessel called the Turbinia with one of his engines 
from which remarkable speed performances were 
obtained, thus indicating its possible adaptation to 
further marine purposes. The Parsons designs pur- 
chased by Mr. Westinghouse were the result of Eng- 
lish practice, and not adapted to the conditions under 
which it was desired to develop this type of prime 
mover in the United States. Under Westinghouse' s 
direction, important constructional changes were 



184 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

made and suitable electric generators designed, so 
that the combined outfit was put upon the market 
to supply electricity for light and power. In the 
original form the speeds of the Parsons machines 
had been very high and their efficiency rather low ; 
in the form developed by Westinghouse, both features 
were so improved that the machines compared 
favorably with the best type of reciprocating steam 
engine in the matter of efficiency, weighed much less, 
occupied much smaller space, and required less care 
and attention in their operation. 

The development of the steam turbine in the last 
few years has been accompanied by almost astounding 
results. Single units of more than 75,000 horse 
power are in operation and still larger sizes in con- 
templation. The thermal efficiency of the later 
machines has reached a point which engineers not 
many years ago regarded as unattainable. The 
results in gains to the public at large from these 
advances are of marked value, as evidenced by the 
wide extension of distributed electric power at rela- 
tively low cost, so that many forms of mechanism 
of great utility and contributing to domestic comfort 
are made available. For practically all purposes, 
other forms of prime movers have been displaced as 
the result of the availability of cheap and convenient 
electric power. The gas engine, which at one time 
seemed to have an important future, has been for 
the present relegated to a minor position in the 
matter of power production. 

One of the possibilities which impressed the mind 
of Westinghouse in developing the turbine for marine 



FROM NIAGARA TO THE NAVY 185 

uses was this : if the same propulsive power could 
be got from an engine occupying only a fraction of 
the space required by the engines then in use in ships, 
there would be more room for the coal bunkers, 
which in turn meant a wider steaming radius, letting 
a vessel stay longer out of port without resorting to 
coaling at sea ; and if these advantages could be 
obtained without the vibration or thumping of 
reciprocating engines, the machinery would last 
longer and would need less frequent repairs. In 
order to make sure that he was on the right track, 
he called into consultation Rear-Admiral Melville, 
a retired engineer-in-chief of the navy, and one of 
his most experienced associates, John H. Macalpine, 
and set them to work at a laborious investigation of 
the whole subject. 

Their first report was not encouraging. The 
trouble with the turbine was that it did not too little, 
but altogether too much. Its greatest economic 
efficiency, they said, was at high speed, whereas that 
of the propeller was at a comparatively low rate of 
revolution. If the propeller were driven too fast, it 
simply cut holes in the water instead of pushing the 
ship along ; but to reduce the speed of the turbine 
below a certain degree involved a great waste of 
energy, and to drop it still lower rendered it incapable 
of running the propeller. So the problem narrowed 
down to the discovery of a means of using a high- 
speed engine to drive a low-speed propeller and yet 
conserve the force of both to the utmost. 

This Melville and Macalpine accomplished by an 
invention that made practicable the use of gearing 



186 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

to connect the turbine with the propeller shaft, the 
gears being so proportioned as to permit each element 
to run at its most efficient speed. While gearing had 
formerly been employed to a limited extent for some- 
what similar purposes, no general success had at- 
tended the effort to make it applicable to the large 
powers necessary in marine propulsion. The Mel- 
ville-Macalpine system employs what is technically 
described as a ''floating frame", one element of the 
general arrangement that carries the pinions trans- 
mitting the power from the turbine to the main gears 
driving the propeller. The floating frame is so de- 
signed as automatically to maintain perfect alignment 
between the teeth of the pinions and gears, the work- 
ing pressures of the contacting teeth being thus 
limited to a degree that prevents destructive wear. 
The Machine Company, under the direction of West- 
inghouse, built an experimental set of gears capable 
of transmitting seventy-five hundred horse power. 
These operated successfully, and, when placed in the 
United States collier Neptune, realized all the ex- 
pectations of the inventors and of Westinghouse, 
who had made important contributions to the basic 
scheme. 

Since this successful installation, the use of gears 
has become almost universal in the newer naval ves- 
sels, and their employment in connection with the 
highly efficient steam turbines now available marks 
a most important advance in the art of marine pro- 
pulsion. It is worth noting, moreover, that the ex- 
perimental development of the Melville-Macalpine 
invention was carried on by Mr. Westinghouse during 



FROM NIAGARA TO THE NAVY 187 

the receivership period of the Machine Company, 
against the strong opposition of the engineering and 
financial directors of the Company at that time. 

There was included in the Neptune experiment, 
a most ingenious invention of H. T. Herr, Vice Presi- 
dent of the Machine Company, by means of which 
the pilot or steersman was given entire control over 
the propelling machinery without the intervention 
of manual operation in the engine room. The opera- 
tions of starting, stopping, speed regulation, and 
reversing were effected directly from the pilot house ; 
and, though the mechanism worked as designed, the 
innovation was so radical that it was regarded askance 
by most naval men, who knew only the old method 
of giving the engineer his orders through speaking 
tubes and bells. It will be taking no great risk in 
prophecy to assert that the more modern method of 
control will presently come into general use. Its 
advantages, particularly in the manipulation of ves- 
sels engaged in battle or threatened with collision, 
are obvious even to the popular mind. In not a few 
respects it parallels on the water the instantaneous 
mastery of his train by the locomotive driver in his 
cab, with the lever of his air brake within reach of 
his hand. 



CHAPTER XIV 
"Blushing Honors Thick Upon Him" 

As we have already seen, George Westinghouse 
had no notion of confining his activities to the coun- 
try of his home, but from the hour of his first success 
began to lay plans covering the civilized world. 
Wherever he saw a possible opening, however re- 
mote, he lost no time about arranging for its occupa- 
tion. In this way, while keeping Pittsburgh for their 
permanent base, his various industries established 
outposts in all the leading countries of Europe. 

As early as 1888 he had obtained a contract for 
an electric plant capable of lighting a considerable 
area in London. Everything for this purpose was 
manufactured in Pittsburgh and shipped over. 
Other contracts which followed, extending into vari- 
ous lines of electrical equipment, were handled in 
the same way. By 1897 the English orders had 
mounted in multitude so as to arouse an inquiry 
in both countries whether the supplies could not 
be more promptly and economically furnished if 
there were a factory on the ground, especially as 
England was taking kindly to rapid transit by trolley 
on the American plan, and the Westinghouse Electric 
and Manufacturing Company was recognized as a 



"BLUSHING HONORS THICK UPON HIM" 189 

source from which to procure the very latest inven- 
tions. A group of prominent Englishmen interested 
in engineering enterprises accepted directorships 
in the British branch, which was enlarged in scope 
and heavily capitalized, and a tract of about one 
hundred and thirty acres of land was bought at 
TrafTord Park, on the outskirts of Manchester, 
adjoining the ship canal and with abundant rail- 
road facilities, as a site for the works. These were 
to cover thirty acres under roof ; and, as it was a 
part of Westinghouse's plan to house his men as 
well as hire them, a building company laid out a 
somewhat smaller tract near by as a residence town. 

Under the new organization, the British company 
was to receive from the American company the 
rights for the British Empire, exclusive of Canada, 
in all the Westinghouse electric patents then exist- 
ing, and all that might be issued during the follow- 
ing ten years. The two corporations were to co- 
operate in every way. The articles of incorporation 
of the British company were made so broad as to 
include power to conduct pretty nearly any sort of 
business it wished to, from running a hotel and rent- 
ing dwellings to managing schools and banks, so 
that, in standing sponsor for its undertakings, the 
American company was laying itself liable to a good 
many vicissitudes. 

Though assigning the supervision of the plans and 
the preparation of the estimates to his own engineers, 
Westinghouse made a strong point, from politic 
considerations, of having only British labor employed 
in the actual work of building the shops. A Man- 



190 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

Chester contractor was engaged to lay the founda- 
tions, and a London contractor to put up the steel 
framework, but neither was willing to predict when 
his share of the task would be finished. Several 
weeks passed before the first spadeful of earth was 
turned, and fully six months before the foundations 
had reached a stage where the steel men could attack 
the superstructure. Meanwhile the orders were 
piling up, and the dates fixed when they must be 
filled left only eighteen months' leeway for rearing 
nine huge buildings. The situation was exasper- 
ating. Winter was drawing near, and the best 
the contractors would venture to guess was five 
years for the completion of the job. Then some- 
thing happened. 

Coming over from New York to Pittsburgh one 
night, Westinghouse found on his train James C. 
Stewart, a member of a contracting firm who had 
performed some wonderfully rapid and effective 
services for him in the past, and in the course of 
their conversation the Trafford Park delays came 
up for comment. On arriving in Pittsburgh the 
following morning, Stewart- went at once to West- 
inghouse's office and looked over the plans. He 
seemed to see something deliciously humorous in 
the five-years' suggestion of the British contractors. 

"With the right management," was his verdict, 
after a little calculation, "there is no reason why 
that work should take more than fifteen months." 

"Would you undertake to finish it in that time?" 
asked Westinghouse. 

"On my own terms — yes." 



" BLUSHING HONORS THICK UPON HIM" 191 

The terms were such as to insure to Stewart 
rather magnificent profits, but Westinghouse accepted 
his proposal. He had now got hold of a man after 
his own heart, and a contract was signed at once. 
This was in January, 1901. Stewart caught the 
next steamer for Liverpool, landing on the twenty- 
fourth. He had never been in England before, but 
he hastened to Manchester, looked over the ground, 
and cabled to two of his best American assistants 
to join him. Though a thousand miles apart when 
his message reached them, they met aboard ship on 
the first of February. When their vessel stopped 
off Queenstown they learned that Stewart was 
about starting back to America to get his mechani- 
cal supplies, so they hired a tender and went out to 
meet him. As his steamer came up, there he was, 
leaning over the rail. In another minute there 
landed on their deck a fat package of papers, which 
on opening they discovered to be their working 
orders written out to the minutest detail, so that 
when they reached Manchester the next day they 
had only to hasten to Trafford Park and plunge 
into their task. 

Stewart was absent from England three weeks. 
By that time he had collected the American ma- 
chinery and implements he needed, and ten more 
assistants — young men whom he had thoroughly 
trained in his way of doing business. With his 
little staff he went at things in true Yankee fashion. 
A month or more the whole party worked not only 
all day but far into the night, snatching a bite of 
food how and when they could, and contenting 



192 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

themselves with four or five hours' sleep in order 
to rise at six and repeat the performance. 

It was a strenuous life, but it paid. The laborers 
at work when Stewart took hold numbered less than 
two hundred and fifty ; within a month he had a 
force of twenty-five hundred which he gradually 
increased to nearly four thousand. He looked 
after everything personally, substituting American 
methods for British wherever time could be saved. 
He ran a line of track from the nearest railway freight 
station to the grounds, and spurs of this into every 
building, thus bringing in between two and three 
hundred carloads of material a day. He furnished 
the steel workers with automatic riveters to super- 
sede the tedious manual labor they had been doing, 
and thus more than quadrupled their speed. He 
replaced the human hodcarriers with steam hoists 
for lifting bricks and mortar to any story of the 
buildings, and showed the bricklayers with his 
own hands how to lay from eighteen hundred to 
twenty-five hundred brick a day instead of the five or 
six hundred they had been accustomed to lay, pay- 
ing them a penny an hour more than their usual wages 
when they imitated him. By a little encouragement 
distributed here and there, he managed to infuse 
into the whole undertaking so much of the spirit 
which characterized all Westinghouse work at home, 
that he had eight of the nine buildings ready for 
occupancy in ten months, and the ninth as soon as 
some belated changes in the plans made it possible. 

When it is remembered that there entered into 
the construction twelve million feet of lumber, ten 



"BLUSHING HONORS THICK UPON HIM" 193 

million brick, fifteen thousand tons of steel, one 
hundred seventy-five thousand feet of glass, and 
forty thousand square yards of paving ; that the 
cost ran well above a million dollars, of which Brit- 
ish wage-earners received the largest benefit ; that 
the whole performance under American direction 
consumed less than one fifth of the time estimated 
for it by the British contractors consulted ; and that 
the first big job to which the new establishment 
addressed itself was the electrification of the Met- 
ropolitan District and Underground Railways of 
London — an improvement of which the gross cost 
was twenty-five million dollars — it seems scarcely 
wonderful that the press of the world was soon 
ringing with "the Westinghouse Invasion of Eng- 
land." 

Many honors came to George Westinghouse in 
the course of his busy life. Union College, his 
alma mater, conferred upon him the degree of Doctor 
of Philosophy. The Koenigliche Technische Hoch- 
schule of Berlin made him a Doctor of Engineer- 
ing. France took him into her Legion of Honor, 
King Humbert decorated him with the Order of the 
Crown of Italy, and he received the Order of Leo- 
pold of Belgium from the hands of King Leopold II 
in person. The Franklin Institute, within a few 
years of his first success, awarded him the Scott 
premium and medal for his improvements in air 
brake construction. He was the first American 
to receive from the Society of German Engineers 
the Grashof medal, which is considered in Germany 



194 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

the highest honor that can be conferred upon an 
engineer. He was the second recipient of the John 
Fritz medal, the first having been Mr. Fritz himself. 
He was one of the two honorary members of the 
American Association for the Advancement of 
Science. He belonged to a large number of scientific 
and technological societies, and was called to the 
presidency of some of them. His immersion in his 
work, together with his native modesty, moved him 
to decline more such offices than he accepted, and 
also to flee from honorary degrees offered him by 
sundry American colleges in which he was in no way 
interested. 

One of the things he most dreaded in connection 
with the acceptance of such dignities was making 
a speech. In May, 1905, the International Rail- 
way Congress met in Washington. As it embraced 
delegates from forty-eight countries besides our own, 
as it held its meetings only once in five years, and 
as this was its first visit to the United States, the 
occasion was regarded as of great importance, and 
the desire was universal that the American citizen 
most widely known for his practical achievements 
for the safety, speed, and comfort of rail transporta- 
tion should be its chairman. George A. Post of 
New York, President of the Railway Business Asso- 
ciation, was deputed to convey the invitation. 
Mr. Westinghouse received it with evidences of 
genuine dismay, especially when he found that he 
must open the sessions with a formal address. He 
declared that he could not make a speech to such an 
audience — he should be tongue-tied with fright. 



"BLUSHING HONORS THICK UPON HIM" 195 

As he resisted all ordinary arguments, Mrs. West- 
inghouse was called upon to lend her aid, and held 
her ground so pertinaciously that he capitulated. 
Even after he had written the speech he brought 
it to Mr. Post to look over and criticize. 

"His manuscript," said Mr. Post, in narrating 
the incident to me, "was a fine piece of work from 
the point of view of comprehensiveness and clarity 
of expression ; but I promptly drew his attention 
to the fact that it ignored, except for a brief passing 
reference, the momentous subject of the introduction 
of electricity as an agency of transportation. 

"'I have been personally so involved in that 
movement,' he answered, 'that I feared it might 
seem like egotism for me to enlarge upon it.' 

"I induced him, nevertheless, to rewrite enough 
of the address to treat the missing topic as it deserved. 
When he handed back the revised product he was 
still suffering from premonitory stage-fright. 'I 
feel weaker and weaker as the time approaches,' 
said he ; 'I really don't see how I am going to get 
through this speech.' 

"He took comfort from my suggestion that, 
instead of attempting to commit his remarks to 
memory, he read them ; and the opening day found 
him as composed as if he were going to one of his 
own directors' meetings. Even had he not been 
heartened by my assurances, he could not have 
helped being affected by what followed his ascent 
of the platform. The audience he was facing was 
well sprinkled with men whose aristocratic or aca- 
demic titles had been blazoned far and wide. This 



196 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

furnished me a pretext for presenting him, by subtle 
contrast, as 'one who needs neither prefix nor affix 
to his name — George Westinghouse.' The storm 
of applause and cheers which greeted him as he 
stepped forward spoke for itself in point of sincerity." 
Of all the tributes paid him in this line, I suspect 
that two stood a trifle apart from the rest as giving 
him peculiar pleasure. One was a little paragraph 
which appeared in Life in October, 1899, in a depart- 
ment it was publishing weekly under the heading, 
"Popular Birthdays": 

GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE, BORN OCT. 6, 1846 
My dear Mr. Westinghouse : 

This is just a brief line sent to you in hopes that 
it will reach you promptly on the morning of your 
birthday. Men like you are of more value to a State 
than others I could mention — but why spoil a 
happy day by making comparisons? Your crea- 
tions are like works of art — not only give pleasure, 
but have a practical value. Where Shakespeare 
wrought in words, you work in iron and steel. It 
is good to think of you alive and with us yet, and may 
Time deal kindly with one whose name is above 
reproach. 

With many congratulations, believe me 

Ever yours, 

Life. 

Coming "out of the blue", as it were, from a jour- 
nal with which he had no relation, the genuinely 
friendly spirit of this note warmed his heart. The 
other tribute was of a wholly different character 
— nothing less than the award, in 191 2, by the 
American Institute of Electrical Engineers, of the 



"BLUSHING HONORS THICK UPON HIM" 197 

Edison gold medal for " meritorious achievements 
in the development of the alternating current sys- 
tem." That after a quarter-century of strife, he 
should receive such a recognition with the name of 
his great antagonist attached to it, founded on his 
success in the very field where they had fought their 
hardest battle, seemed indeed the crowning triumph 
of his career as a pioneer in the industrial utilization 
of electricity in America. 

From the catalogue of honors must not be omitted 
two others which emphasize certain qualities more 
important than technical skill or resourcefulness, 
scientific learning or prophetic vision. In an earlier 
chapter, mention was made of the Philadelphia 
Company, which, thanks to the breadth of its char- 
ter, began as a natural gas distributing corporation 
and gradually absorbed a large share of the public 
utilities of Pittsburgh. At a stage in its affairs when 
all the conditions seemed ripe, an offer came to Mr. 
Westinghouse, through a New York banking house, 
for the purchase of his controlling interest at a price 
well above the current market quotations, but he 
refused to sell unless the minority stockholders were 
given the chance to sell their shares at an equal 
price. Then he announced this to the minority, 
telling them that they need not sell unless they 
wished to, but that those who were satisfied with 
the price might make over their stock to him, and 
he would sell it with his own. In less than three 
days, more than two thirds of the remaining shares 
were locked up in his safe. As soon as he had all 
the stock in his custody, he carried it to New York, 



198 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

met the prospective purchasers, and laid before them 
a statement of the affairs of the Company. They 
accepted his word without any examination of the 
books, and took over his whole budget of certificates 
at the price originally offered. This exhibition of 
confidence by the parties on both sides of the bar- 
gain attracted wide attention at the time, and has 
often since been cited in connection with a later 
episode of kindred significance. 

Early in 1905, underwriting circles throughout 
the country were startled by a scandal which broke 
out in New York, involving charges of abuse of 
trust by the officers of some of the great life insur- 
ance companies. It was precipitated by the death 
of Henry B. Hyde, the largest shareholder in the 
Equitable Life Assurance Society, which was then 
conducted as an ordinary joint stock company. 
For some time a violent struggle had been going 
on for mastery in the management between the 
Hyde party, which claimed the exclusive right, by 
virtue of its stock ownership, and another called 
the Alexander party, representing the policy hold- 
ers, who claimed that, as their annual contribution 
furnished the means for running the business, they 
should have supreme authority in its administra- 
tion. A crisis in this controversy set afoot inquiries 
which presently made plain the need for a general 
overhauling of the local life insurance traffic. Gov- 
ernor Higgins sent a special message on the subject 
to the legislature, which responded by appointing 
a commission of investigation. The commission chose 
as its counsel Charles E. Hughes, whose adroit exam- 



"BLUSHING HONORS THICK UPON HIM" 199 

ination of witnesses unearthed a mass of shocking evi- 
dence and incidentally won him a national reputation. 
It was shown, among other things, that trust 
funds had been used for procuring desired legisla- 
tion, and for speculation in securities designed for 
the companies' investments; that one insurance 
officer held directorships in several railroad and 
other companies, traceable to his control over his 
own company's investment funds ; that well-known 
attorneys were receiving annual salaries as retainers, 
without rendering any compensatory service; that 
agents were indulging in all sorts of trickery, such as 
accepting potatoes from farmers and passes from 
railroad men in payment of premiums, taking notes 
instead of money and making no effort to collect 
them, and allowing rebates under conditions which 
opened an endless vista of fraud. 

Even before these revelations of corruption had 
been formally spread upon the record, popular sus- 
picion had become so strong that many shareholders 
in the Equitable, both in this country and in Europe, 
had disposed of their stock at a sacrifice, and the 
new business of the Society was falling off so that 
its bankruptcy seemed inevitable. At this juncture 
Thomas Fortune Ryan, the New York financier, 
came to the rescue. He formed a syndicate to pur- 
chase control of the Society, with its four hundred 
million dollars' worth of accumulated assets and its 
six hundred thousand policyholders, and announced 
his purpose of reorganizing it on a mutual basis. 
It was a bold stroke, but probably the only one 
which could save the day not merely for the Equi- 



200 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

table but for American life insurance generally ; for, 
in view of the peculiar nature of the interests in- 
volved, with their possibilities of disaster for thou- 
sands of helpless widows and orphans, the upgrowth 
of adverse sentiment was taking on the aspect of 
a great public calamity. 

But how was Mr. Ryan to stem so violent a tide ? 
If he kept the control of the Society in his own hands, 
how many people would believe that he had any 
higher motive in buying it than a desire to turn the 
purchase to his personal profit as promptly as pos- 
sible? Before paying a dollar of the price, he had 
thought out his plan for putting the policyholders 
in control of the Society, working to this end through 
a board of three trustees — men whose names would 
silence all cavil, and in whom he could afford to vest 
an extraordinary prerogative. They were to hold 
the unrestricted power to vote the stock, to prepare 
the necessary amendments to the charter, to super- 
vise every stage of the reorganization, and be answer- 
able to the public for its cleanness of design, and to 
choose thirty of the fifty-two directors, leaving the 
stockholders to elect the remaining twenty- two. 
For two members of his triumvirate, he selected 
Grover Cleveland, the only living ex-President of 
the United States, and Morgan J. O'Brien, who had 
been for nearly twenty years a highly esteemed Jus- 
tice of the Supreme Court of the State and was then 
presiding over its appellate division. As to the 
third member he consulted with several friends whose 
judgment he held most in respect. In view of the 
two selections already made, he did not care about 



u BLUSHING HONORS THICK UPON HIM" 201 

a public officer or a learned lawyer; his hope was 
to find a business man known throughout the world 
for intelligence, courage, energy, force of character, 
and, above everything else, unimpeachable honesty. 
The man who, of all considered by him and his 
friends, seemed to meet best this composite demand, 
was George Westinghouse. 

The messenger chosen to convey to Mr. Westing- 
house the request for his services was Paul D. 
Cravath, who had been one of his chief legal counsel 
for years, and whose intimate friendship with him, 
it was thought, would make for his acceptance 
of his trust. A less propitious season for such a 
proposal it would have been hard to choose. The 
business of the Electric and Manufacturing Com- 
pany had expanded so rapidly that its executive 
resources were overtaxed, and more and more of its 
president's time and thought and financial credit 
were continually required to carry things along. 
Almost any other man than Mr. Westinghouse 
would have been overwhelmed by the load of re- 
sponsibility which was heaping upon his single pair 
of shoulders, and would have insisted upon throw- 
ing some of it off rather than taking more on. Mr. 
Cravath, in presenting Mr. Ryan's request, made 
no secret of the seriousness of the burden which the 
trustees would have to assume. With all the facts 
before him, the argument that finally won Mr. West- 
inghouse's consent to serve was one based on his duty 
as a good citizen to put aside his personal preferences 
in the presence of a crisis with which, for some reason, 
he was regarded as especially fitted to cope. 



202 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

Within a week the trustees met, organized, and 
laid out their general scheme of work. There were 
several vacancies to be filled in the board of direc- 
tors, and, as these had been caused by the resigna- 
tions of James J. Hill, August Belmont, Henry C. 
Frick, Jacob H. Schiff, John A. Stewart, Andrew J. 
Cassatt, and other men of like substance, the impor- 
tance of finding successors of business prominence 
was obvious. More than two hundred names came 
up for review, a few of the best suggestions emanat- 
ing from a little group of policyholders who had 
banded together to do their utmost for the salvation 
of the Society. The trustees were occasionally put 
to their trumps by the need of rapid action. One 
candidate, for instance, lived in a far Southern State, 
but possessed natural qualities and a fund of experi- 
ence so admirably suited to the work he would have 
to do that the trustees were a unit in their desire 
to secure him. A search of the lists, however, 
showed that he lacked an essential requisite : he 
was not a policyholder. Fortunately, this was a 
fault that could be quickly remedied ; and, between 
the hours of eleven in the morning and two in the 
afternoon on the day of the discovery, the gentle- 
man made his formal application, underwent his 
examination, and had his policy issued, thanks to 
the activity of the trustees and other officers of the 
company and the liberal employment of the tele- 
graph. 

The soundness of Mr. Ryan's judgment in the 
choice of his triumvirate was amply proved. For 
the three years preceding Mr. Cleveland's death 



"BLUSHING HONORS THICK UPON HIM" 203 

their action on nearly all questions brought before 
them was unanimous, and where they differed in 
opinions it was a mutually respectful difference, and 
not on vital matters. The faith of the public in 
their high qualifications was shown when, prepara- 
tory to the first election, they sent out to every policy- 
holder two papers with carefully couched explana- 
tions of the meaning and force of each — a blank 
ballot, and a proxy containing their own names ; 
for of the ninety thousand responses, only forty-five 
hundred made any use of the ballot, the others 
containing signed proxies committing the whole 
business to the discretion of the trustees. 



CHAPTER XV 
A Second Financial Ordeal 

After so many years of success in overcoming the 
difficulties that confronted him in building up his 
organizations, George Westinghouse was destined to 
suffer the reaction which is due from time to time in 
all evolutionary processes. We have seen how his 
Electric and Manufacturing Company passed through 
the ordeal of the early '9o's and came out triumphant. 
But its very prosperity at a time when the general 
business of the country was most depressed involved 
it in fresh perils by begetting overconfidence. 

To enlarge its resources, it first increased its capital 
stock ; then it issued collateral trust bonds, later 
debenture bonds, and later still collateral trust notes ; 
till, with its multiplication -of fixed charges, its ex- 
traordinarily liberal dividend policy, the maturing of 
many of its short-term obligations, and the advances 
it was compelled to make to protect its foreign 
dependencies — none of which, except the Canadian 
concern, was on a paying basis — the percentage 
of net profits to capital declined year after year at 
an alarming rate. This was not a sign of collapsing 
traffic : on the contrary, it was due to the steady 
expansion of the Company's business. The era of 



A SECOND FINANCIAL ORDEAL 205 

electrical development had set in with abnormal 
energy. More light and power and traction com- 
panies were organizing than could be readily financed ; 
and when those of a strictly local character found 
themselves unable to market their securities on rea- 
sonable terms, they had to fall back upon the manu- 
facturing companies from whom they were buying 
their equipment, settling their purchases only partly 
in cash, and giving notes for the balance with a 
deposit of their own stocks and bonds as collateral. 

Thus it came about that, with its trade continually 
on the increase, the Electric and Manufacturing 
Company was faced with a perilous embarrassment. 
The banks had been overloaded with the negotiable 
paper of the small concerns, and began to retrench 
on their discounts. In accordance with his habit in 
forecasting the future, Westinghouse read in these 
phenomena only their hopeful portent. The enor- 
mous diffusion of the uses of electricity, and the rapid 
cheapening of methods for producing it, pointed, for 
him, to a near day when it should penetrate every 
branch of industry, public and private. What his 
prophetic vision overlooked was the ever-increasing 
need of the means of sustenance for this growth. 
Unfortunately for him, the men who controlled those 
means were unable to share his optimism as to the 
ultimate prospect. 

During all this period there was not only no 
shrinkage in the Company's dividends, but a positive 
inflation. The rate on both preferred and common 
stock, starting at seven per cent, rose first to nine 
and then to ten per cent. Naturally this increased 



206 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

the speculative value of the stocks, but it had the 
concurrent effect of diminishing the ratio of working 
capital to volume of trade. For example, the pros- 
perous year ending March 31, 1907, showed a profit 
applicable to dividends approximating two million 
eight hundred thousand dollars, but the dividends 
at the prevailing high rate ate up almost two million 
and a half of this, leaving less than three hundred 
thousand dollars with which to tide over the first 
exigencies of the fiscal year. In the meantime the 
loans needed were obtained from the banks with 
more and more difficulty and at a greater and greater 
cost ; an issue of fifteen million dollars of convertible 
debenture bonds, made in 1906, had been launched 
only at a net discount of nearly six per cent. As the 
floating debt continued to rise, resort was had to a 
new issue of stock, which was offered to the existing 
shareholders at fifty per cent above par — a pre- 
mium ostensibly justified by the ten per cent divi- 
dend which the Company was then paying and an- 
nounced its purpose to maintain. But the effort 
was ineffective, for clouds were already gathering 
thick on the financial horizon, premonitory of the 
storm which was to break in the autumn and sweep 
over the entire country. 

The middle of October, 1907, found the Company 
in actual straits. On the fifteenth it paid its usual 
quarterly dividend ; but a fresh stock issue on which 
it had counted to bring seven and a half million 
dollars into its treasury had yielded only about one 
third of that sum, and, in order to accomplish even 
this, Westinghouse and one or two other large stock- 



A SECOND FINANCIAL ORDEAL 207 

holders had been obliged to come forward and prac- 
tically divide the subscription among them. It was 
carrying a bond burden of some thirty million dollars ; 
most of its floating debt of fourteen million dollars 
was due or approaching maturity ; and in view of the 
situation the banks in Pittsburgh and elsewhere were 
refusing any extension of time on the nine million 
dollars or more they had advanced, while the credi- 
tors for merchandise furnished were pressing their 
claims, aggregating about five million dollars, for 
payment. Behind all these direct obligations stood 
the consideration due to the stockholders, whose 
interest amounted in round numbers to twenty-nine 
million dollars, almost all the shares having been 
bought at prices above par. 

On the eighteenth, Westinghouse, who was in New 
York, telegraphed his financial secretary, Walter 
Uptegraff, to meet him there, and their canvass of 
the whole matter led to the conclusion that, unless 
the outstanding loans could be renewed or four mil- 
lion dollars in cash raised at once, the company must 
go to the wall. New York was out of the question 
as a further source of assistance, so they hastened 
back to Pittsburgh and called into consultation 
Judge J. H. Reed, an old and good friend. Reed 
made straight for the local bankers, setting the actual 
facts before them as to the inherent strength of the 
Company, and enlarging on the economic unwisdom, 
on public grounds alone, of letting so magnificent an 
asset of the city suffer damage for lack of the means 
needed to relieve a momentary pressure. For twenty- 
four hours there seemed a chance that the threatened 



208 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

catastrophe might be averted. Then came the 
twenty-second, with its news that the Knickerbocker 
Trust Company in New York had failed, and that 
the money center of the country was in the throes of 
a panic. On the twenty- third, therefore, the di- 
rectors of the Electric and Manufacturing Company 
applied to the United States Circuit Court for the 
appointment of receivers. 

After the event, of course, there were a multitude 
of wiseacres in the neighborhood who shook their 
heads solemnly and said they had long felt certain 
of what was coming. The rest of the community, 
outside of banking circles, was taken by surprise. 
It had been the policy of the founder and president 
of the Company to waive needless formalities, and, 
as most of his fellow shareholders had appeared 
entirely content with his administration, he had not 
taken the trouble to advertise its details to the world. 
No report beyond a mere generality or two had been 
issued between 1897 and 1907, nor had any regular 
stockholders' meeting been held during the same 
period except in 1906. On that occasion a handful 
of persons present, led by a prominent broker, de- 
manded explanations of sundry transactions of the 
Company which had taken place on the authority 
of a special meeting of stockholders and directors : 
one was an issue of new stock and another the pur- 
chase of a small railroad. Westinghouse himself 
was absent when the colloquy took place, and Vice- 
President Herr, who was in the chair, assured the 
dissenters that the reason the Company did not issue 
more elaborate reports was because it preferred not 



A SECOND FINANCIAL ORDEAL 209 

to expose its inner affairs to the scrutiny of its busi- 
ness rivals. 

At the 1907 meeting, however, Westinghouse pre- 
sided, and invited all who were seeking information 
to interrogate him. In response to their inquiries 
he explained that the issue of additional stock men- 
tioned the year before had been made because the 
Company was receiving orders of such magnitude 
that it must have more cash in hand to execute them. 
He added frankly that, borrowing when the money 
market was exceptionally tight, it had been charged 
inordinate rates for the accommodation. As to the 
railroad purchased, it was a valuable property, the 
securities of which had been taken over as part of a 
large transaction that resulted to the advantage of 
the Company. The questioners were very compli- 
mentary afterward in their references to the candor 
of his statement, and an incident which at first 
threatened to cause an insurrection was closed. 

However astute any outsiders may have been, 
there were members of the inner circle of the Com- 
pany's management to whom the news of its em- 
barrassment came almost without warning. One 
was Vice President Herr. At half-past five on the 
afternoon of the twenty-second of October, he was 
talking over a routine matter with Westinghouse, 
who appeared as composed as usual ; and as they 
finished their conversation Westinghouse remarked : 

"Herr, I shall have a new job for you to-morrow." 

"What's that?" asked Herr. 

"Receiver of the Electric Company." 

Overnight, the news filtered out in various direc- 



210 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

tions, but some persons who heard it found it difficult 
to credit when they saw all the men busy the next 
day at their usual tasks, and the chief wearing an 
unclouded brow. At half-past nine in the morning, 
while his counsel were preparing the final papers for 
presentation to the court, one of his lieutenants called 
to see him about a matter of current business. When 
it was disposed of, he exclaimed as buoyantly as if 
financial straits were the subject furthest from his 
mind: "By the way, Macfarland, I've got an idea 
now for our turbine that will make a sensation when 
we bring it out!" 

Nevertheless it proved a stirring day in the chief's 
own office in the Westinghouse Building. Telegraph 
boys were scurrying back and forth, the telephone 
bell kept up an unceasing clatter, and visitors would 
run in for a brief interview and out again with equal 
haste. 

Westinghouse saw those with whom he felt he 
could speak freely, but excused himself to any whom 
he suspected of coming chiefly from motives of curi- 
osity. To all who inquired about the situation he 
said the same thing in effect : "The Company is not 
insolvent — only hampered for the moment. It is 
doing more business than ever before. It will come 
out all right." And to an old friend whose voice had 
a particularly despondent inflection he counseled 
calmness, adding: "I grant you that this is not 
pleasant, but it isn't the biggest thing in the world. 
All large business has its ups and downs. The crisis 
through which we are passing is only part of our day's 
work." 



A SECOND FINANCIAL ORDEAL 211 

Whoever imagined from his manner that he was 
simply indifferent made a sad mistake. He realized 
to the full the force of the blow that had fallen upon 
him, but he was made of the sort of metal that does 
not break under beating. His thoughts went out 
in the hour of his own stress to the unhappiness of 
many who, on the strength of his name, had bought 
electric stock at its price of two days before, and seen 
it drop forty per cent in twenty-four hours. He 
drew some consolation from the fact that the local 
stock exchange had closed its doors that morning, 
to remain shut till the storm blew over, and he issued 
statements to the newspapers advising all share- 
holders not to throw their holdings overboard in the 
panic but wait till the air cleared and the Company 
righted itself, as he was convinced it would soon. 
Conditions, he admitted, were not the same in 1891, 
because the Company had now exhausted its market 
for junior securities, and another solution than a 
fresh issue would have to be devised for the present 
difficulty. 

The failure of the Electric and Manufacturing 
Company carried down with it for a short time three 
other Westinghouse concerns : the Machine Com- 
pany, the Nernst Lamp Company — a minor per- 
sonal venture of Westinghouse's — and the Security 
Investment Company. As the troubles of this trio 
were adjustable separately, they need not occupy 
our attention further; and neither the Air Brake 
Company nor the Union Switch and Signal Company 
was affected at all. 

The creditors divided themselves naturally into 



212 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

four groups, each of which appointed a committee 
to represent it in the negotiations which were to 
follow. That chosen by the bankers was the "re- 
organization" committee proper, and to cooperate 
with it there were a merchandise creditors' committee, 
an employees' committee, and a stockholders' com- 
mittee. The bankers, representing clients in Pitts- 
burgh, New York, Boston, Chicago, and a string of 
lesser cities and towns stretching from the Atlantic 
Coast to the Pacific, vetoed peremptorily most of 
the plans first proposed. The other committees 
seemed generally sympathetic with the desire of 
Westinghouse himself that measures be adopted for 
immediate relief, trusting to time and the obvious 
momentum of the Company's business to work out 
the ultimate salvation of all the interests concerned. 
The more conservative element among them looked 
less kindly upon his insistence that the support of 
the foreign companies and branches should be es- 
pecially safeguarded in any agreement reached, for 
the objectors could see in these offspring only a drag 
upon the parent company. 

Scheme after scheme was put forward only to be 
swept aside, and it was not till toward , the end of 
March, 1908, that a basis was reached on which all 
parties could come together. Although the chief 
credit for it undoubtedly was due to Westinghouse, 
it came to be known as the merchandise creditors' 
plan, because it had for its central idea the funding 
of substantially the entire debt of the Company into 
stock, and this would demand of the merchandise 
creditors, as a matter of course, a heavier sacrifice 



A SECOND FINANCIAL ORDEAL 213 

than of any one else. They were to accept four mil- 
lion dollars' worth of new stock in liquidation of their 
claims, and, as ten million dollars was fixed as the sum 
required to procure the dissolution of the receiver- 
ship, the remaining six million dollars was to be ob- 
tained by offering that amount of new stock for sub- 
scription by the existing shareholders. The banks 
were required, under the same plan, to merge half 
their claims in convertible five per cent bonds, and 
the remaining half either in stock at par, or in fifteen- 
year notes at the same rate of interest ; with the 
option that the second half might be divided, three 
fifths going into five per cent notes maturing serially 
in four, five, and six years, and the other two fifths 
into stock at par. 

The banks could as a rule see little virtue in this 
project ; those that yielded most readily did so only 
on the assurance that if they did not take this they 
might lose more by a forced liquidation and the 
permanent ruin of the Company. Some months 
later a number who had been holding out discovered 
that the new shares were already rising in market 
value, and consented to exchange their claims for 
the securities offered. The stockholders were yet 
harder to deal with. Many raised the objection that 
they had not the requisite money in hand ; a larger 
number declared that the stock they already owned 
had plunged them into misfortune, and they did not 
wish any more of the same sort. It was to the latter 
class that the stockholders' committee addressed 
itself most earnestly. 

At first its letters were conciliatory in tone, ex- 



214 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

patiating on the duty of all shareholders to keep up 
a property of which they were the actual owners ; 
these were followed by diplomatic suggestions that a 
general and ready response would capture public 
attention, stimulate the market for the securities, 
send up prices, and make a neat profit for those sub- 
scribers who came in at once. Still later came plain 
warnings that, unless the reorganization plan were 
soon put into operation, the bondholders would force 
a sale and the stock would be wholly wiped out, its 
holders recovering not a penny of the money they 
had spent on it. But, though the final date for 
closing the subscription list was postponed again and 
again, and "last call" followed "last call" with 
mortifying regularity ; though the bankers, whose 
position was so strong that they could have wrecked 
everything by an inconsiderate move, had seen a 
new light ; though Westinghouse personally took up 
a million and a half dollars of the new stock ; though 
independent banking and brokerage houses which 
could have kept quite out of the atmosphere of 
trouble voluntarily opened their books for subscrip- 
tions and offered to advance the needed money to 
subscribers : about eighteen hundred of the four 
thousand stockholders were still, as late as October I, 
1908, refusing to take over their allotments of the new 
stock, and even November 20 found few of the 
laggards in line. 

Against this showing stood forth in brilliant con- 
trast the action of the Company's employees, most of 
them men whose limited means had been accumulated 
from their daily savings. In the first days of the 



A SECOND FINANCIAL ORDEAL 215- 

reorganization agitation, being recognized as parties 
in interest because their livelihood was temporarily 
at stake on the survival of the business, they had 
appointed a committee to canvass among their own 
body for subscriptions to the new stock. When, at 
the general conference, the work to be accomplished 
was apportioned among the several committees, the 
volume of subscriptions assigned to the employees' 
committee to collect was three hundred ninety-five 
thousand, six hundred fifty dollars ; on the final day 
of reckoning, it came forward with six hundred 
eleven thousand, two hundred fifty dollars, col- 
lected from about five thousand of the workers — 
a striking exhibition of loyalty and intelligence on 
the part of the men who knew at first hand what was 
actually going on in the shops. 

On December 5, 1908, less than fourteen months 
after the appointment of the receivers, the Company 
was taken out of their hands and restored to the stock- 
holders, purged of most of the immediate ills which 
had beset it. Its net debt had been reduced from 
more than forty-four million dollars to less than 
thirty-one million dollars, and its annual interest bur- 
den by one million dollars ; while its capital stock, 
on which there was no fixed liability, had been in- 
creased from twenty-nine million dollars to forty-one 
million dollars, all sorts of floating debts having been 
merged in this increase. There was also another and 
radical change, of which Westinghouse had received 
intimations but of which he had not realized the im- 
minence. In pursuance of an arrangement entered 
into when the reorganization plan was adopted, the 



216 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

bankers and merchandise creditors who had under- 
taken to put it through took control of the adminis- 
tration and elected a new board of sixteen directors, 
selected mainly from among the members of the sev- 
eral committees. This board chose for its chairman 
Robert Mather, a lawyer of a conservative bent of 
mind, who had had large experience in the manage- 
ment of the Rock Island Railway. Westinghouse 
was left in the office of president, but his authority 
was limited to the operating and sales departments, 
and the direction of all financial affairs was vested 
in Mather. 

Temperamentally the two men were wholly un- 
congenial. The boundary line between their re- 
spective fields was sometimes indistinct in spite of 
every effort to define it ; both men were very positive 
in their mental attitude toward any question pre- 
sented which offered a possibility for difference : and 
the difficulty of the situation was intensified by the 
fact that Westinghouse had been for so many years 
not only the titular head of the Company but its 
practical dictator. The result was not hard to fore- 
see, especially as unfortunate outside conditions 
made the first year meager in profits. In January, 
19 10, the directors adopted what on its face seemed 
a highly complimentary resolution, granting Westing- 
house a six months' leave of absence. Soon reports 
gained circulation, however, that the vacation he 
was invited to take was merely a subterfuge to cover 
a quarrel between him and the chairman of the board, 
which, as the directors sided with their chairman, 
pointed to the early retirement of the president. 



A SECOND FINANCIAL ORDEAL 217 

These stories proved only too true. At the annual 
meeting in July, Westinghouse did not appear or 
make any effort for reelection, and the directors 
elected Edwin F. Atkins, a prominent manufacturer 
and merchant of Boston, to the presidency. By the 
summer of 191 1, the Company having in the interval 
taken sundry courses which he believed unprogressive 
and injurious, Westinghouse was ready to open a 
campaign for reinstatement, but later reconsidered 
this purpose. Nevertheless, when he entered the 
annual meeting he carried in his pocket proxies 
which, with his own holding, represented about two 
hundred thousand shares. His endeavor to make 
these effective by moving to permit cumulative 
voting was defeated by the majority in control, who 
swung four hundred and ninety thousand votes for 
any measure or candidate they favored. 

This was the last appearance of Westinghouse as 
a conspicuous figure in the Electric and Manufac- 
turing Company which he founded and had conducted 
for the better part of twenty years, and which, of 
all his many enterprises, held the supreme place in 
his heart. With his elimination ends the story of 
the rehabilitation of his corporation after a fall 
which an eminent economist has described as "in 
point of size, the most considerable mercantile failure 
America has ever witnessed." 1 Tragic as the finale 
was, not a dissenting note was audible in the com- 
ments it drew forth from thoughtful men all over the 
world, dwelling upon the enormous debt of gratitude 

1(1 Corporate Promotions and Reorganizations," by Arthur S. Dewing, 
Ph.D. 



218 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

that humanity owed George Westinghouse for what 
he had accomplished as a fearless captain of industry, 
even though a combination of untoward circumstances 
had prevented his reaping the full measure of material 
reward he had so richly earned. 



CHAPTER XVI 
Air Springs and Addresses 

After George Westinghouse had been forced out 
of the presidency of his Electric and Manufacturing 
Company, his old friends recalled a remark he made 
to the group of Pittsburgh bankers who, in 1891, 
refused to lend him the sum he needed in an emer- 
gency : "Well, gentlemen, this only compels me to 
do something else." He had no notion of being laid 
upon the shelf. His Machine Company was busy 
making gas engines and turbines, and to the develop- 
ment of these he devoted himself with the zeal of 
an artist coming back with a fresh eye to a half- 
finished picture. Beside the mechanisms to which 
he had already given attention in the past, he 
found a new one to interest him, and he owed the 
discovery, as he had so many of its predecessors, 
to an accident. 

The first use of automobiles in this country gave 
scant promise of their present universality. Their 
cost, their load limitations, their liability to get out 
of order, and their general untrustworthiness for 
long pulls, at that time, led most practical observers 
to discredit the idea of their ever superseding the 
delivery dray, the street car, or the suburban railway 
for everyday transportation. In view of his almost 



220 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

lifelong association with the railroad industry, it 
is hardly wonderful that the usually progressive 
Westinghouse was among the ultra-conservatives 
on this point. If he wished to go somewhere for a 
definite purpose, he was glad to go by the shortest 
route and the most expeditious conveyance, but 
rushing through the air for the mere sake of rest 
and refreshment had no attractions for him ; and 
when finally, in 1904, he was induced to let the French 
Westinghouse Works build an elaborately equipped 
limousine car for him as an exhibit of workmanship, 
his surrender to a business argument involved no 
change in his personal prejudices. In the last years 
of his life, it may be said in passing, he became a 
convert to the utilitarian view of the automobile, 
and used one constantly in running between Pitts- 
burgh and the little towns in Turtle Creek Valley 
where his various shops were situated. 

It was while he was still unconverted to the new 
mode of locomotion and ready to consider any fact 
to its disparagement, that he accompanied Mrs. 
Westinghouse one day on a trip in their limousine 
from Lenox, Massachusetts,' to Kingston, New York. 
The chauffeur happened to overlook an obscure but 
deep depression in the road, the car plunged into it, 
and with the rebound of the springs the passengers 
were thrown violently out of their seats, Westinghouse 
striking his head against the roof with a force which 
would have wounded him seriously had not his straw 
hat served for a buffer. As he removed the ruined 
headgear and looked ruefully at it, his first thought 
appears to have been not so much of rebuking the 



AIR SPRINGS AND ADDRESSES 221 

1 

chauffeur as of condemning a machine which was 

capable of giving its occupants such an experience. 

What were inflated rubber tires for, if not to break 

the jars on a rough road? And of what use were 

the best of steel springs, unless they would prevent 

one from being racked to pieces between holes and 

hummocks? Possibly not much could be done to 

improve the action of the tires, but might it not be 

possible to make the springs more efficient? To 

this question he addressed himself with pencil and 

drawing-board immediately on reaching Lenox again. 

His sketches he carried later to Pittsburgh and had 

a model pair of springs constructed, which he brought 

to Lenox and tested on the limousine. When he had 

tinkered with these long enough to locate their 

chief shortcomings, he made another pair ; and 

thus, swinging between Pittsburgh and Lenox, he 

kept up his alterations and experiments till he 

chanced one day to mention the matter to an old 

friend, who asked him whether he had ever heard 

of a spring invented by a mechanic in Watervliet, 

New York. 

"No," he answered. "What kind of a spring?" 

"Compressed air." 

There was magic in the words. The memory 
of his old successes came back to him with a thrill, 
and with no unnecessary delay he visited Watervliet 
and hunted up the inventor, who proved to be a 
German machinist named Richard Liebau. Look- 
ing over the model, it did not take Westinghouse 
long to see where its defects lay. 

"You have a valuable invention here," he com- 



222 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

mented with characteristic frankness, "but it is 
crude in some details. For one thing, it leaks." 

Liebau admitted that the fault was a bad one, 
but added that neither he nor the friends who had 
worked with him had been able to hit upon any- 
satisfactory remedy for it, though they had tried 
many devices. 

"Come with me to Pittsburgh," said Westing- 
house, "and we'll study it out together." And 
that was what they did. 

The Liebau device was of elemental simplicity 
in arrangement, consisting of four air cushions 
located between the body of the car and the axles, 
one at each corner. The cushions were metal 
cylinders, with pistons working in them so that the 
confined air acted as a spring, the most resilient 
medium available. The particular method by which 
the leakage was cured was the invention of West- 
inghouse ; and though to the final development of 
the air spring as we know it to-day there were im- 
portant contributions by the engineering force to 
whom the matter was delegated, the determining 
factor was supplied by the head of the house. In 
his earlier experiments, he had great hope of being 
able to dispense with the use of pneumatic tires, 
and with this end in view he fitted two or three 
cars with air springs and solid tires of various forms, 
and also invented and constructed spring wheels; 
but though, as was his usual habit in such matters, 
he dealt with the subject broadly and attacked it 
from every point of view, he finally became con- 
vinced that for fast-running pleasure cars there had 



AIR SPRINGS AND ADDRESSES 223 

not yet been devised any substitute for pneumatic 
tires. 

A company was formed for the manufacture of 
the air spring, and it derives a pathetic interest 
from the fact that it is the last considerable undertak- 
ing of the kind in which the great inventor ever 
engaged. It proved to be a profitable enterprise, 
and since his death his son, the present George 
Westinghouse, has been its president. 

It was only after his release from the heaviest of 
his executive responsibilities that Westinghouse may 
be said to have found himself as a public speaker. 
During the most active years of his busy life he had 
been called upon from time to time to make an after- 
dinner speech at a gathering of his associates, or 
offer a few words of welcome when a party of foreign 
visitors were to be entertained. We have seen how 
he dreaded facing an audience with even the most 
informal of utterances, and he discredited every 
assurance given him by his hearers that he had 
acquitted himself well and needed only a little more 
assurance to do better yet. One virtue of his 
speeches lay in their always dealing with some sub- 
ject with which he was thoroughly familiar, and, 
thanks to his lack of artificial training, he expounded 
his views with a directness that atoned for any 
inelegances of expression. These facts alone would 
have sufficed to account for the frequency of the 
demands made upon him now that he was supposed 
to have more leisure than of old ; but another 
factor of quite as much importance was the wide- 
spread desire among his professional colleagues to 



224 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

prove that, whatever estimate the commercial world 
might put upon his work as a financier, their admira- 
tion of him as an engineer and their affection for 
him as a man had suffered no diminution. On 
every occasion which would afford them a pretext, 
therefore, they called upon him for an address, and 
to not a few calls he responded. His themes were 
happily chosen to fit the situation and the times, 
and his treatment of them was appropriately practical. 

His installation as president of the American 
Society of Mechanical Engineers occurred soon 
after the Taft administration had begun its sweeping 
war upon alleged offenders against the antitrust 
law ; and the kernel of his address on taking the 
chair was a declaration that " there never was a 
time in the history of the world when honest, wise, 
and conservative action is more strongly demanded 
of us and of all men than now, if we have any desire 
to preserve the right to carry on comfortably our 
various affairs." 

At a dinner of the American Engineering Societies 
held the following year in Boston, he expanded 
this point. "For many years," said he, "the tend- 
encies have been strongly toward large and power- 
ful railway and industrial combinations. Their 
very magnitude, coupled with the evil practices so 
frequently disclosed in the press and in our law 
courts, has so aroused the public that there is now 
a fixed determination to establish by national and 
State laws an exacting governmental control of 
practically all forms of corporations, in order that 
competition may be encouraged and not stifled, 



AIR SPRINGS AND ADDRESSES 225 

but seemingly with due regard to the real objects 
in view — the securing of the best public service 
in all forms, the best foods and goods for our daily 
needs, the greatest possible comfort to the masses, 
and as great freedom as possible from those restric- 
tions which hinder rather than promote honest 
endeavor. Many of the hardships which will arise 
might have been avoided by those responsible for 
the creation of great combinations had they ap- 
preciated the inevitable consequences of their selfish 
and unwise course in suppressing competition by 
methods transparently wrong. But fortunately 
there are indications that the great leaders are alive 
to the importance of the regulation of legislation, 
and the creation of a sentiment which will bring 
business men to their senses. The engineering 
societies, by joint action, have it in their power to 
do much. Probably there is no better way than to 
show, from their knowledge and experience, that un- 
regulated competition and rivalry in business have 
made our costs greater and rendered ideal conditions 
in industrial and engineering matters most difficult 
of realization. 

"I need only call your attention to the effects 
of this unregulated competition in one great in- 
dustry — the electrical — which has grown up in 
less than twenty-five years. No user of electrical 
apparatus can fail to appreciate the advantage it 
would be to him, when some repair part is needed, 
if certain standards were followed by all constructors 
with reference to equivalent devices; but it is 
lamentable to say that with the single exception 



226 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

of uniform bases for incandescent lamps, there are 
now practically no standards. The vast majority 
of our inventors proceed along independent lines, 
with the result of a constantly growing confusion, 
to the disadvantage of everybody." 

By way of illustrating the evils of this unsys- 
tematic mode of proceeding, the speaker cited the 
case of one large electrical company which manu- 
factured a standard motor, yet whose customers 
were continually requesting estimates on special 
motors embracing some particular feature of a motor 
made by another manufacturer. These special es- 
timates, even on motors of less than two-hundred 
horse power, amounted in a single year to about ten 
thousand in number, involving departures from the 
standard motor in horse power or speed rating, or 
dimensions of base, or dimensions over all, or height 
from base to center of shaft, or weight, or method 
of lubrication, or size of shaft, or guaranty of per- 
formance. Such demands, of course, laid a heavy 
burden upon the manufacturer, and inconvenienced 
the purchaser by increased expense and delayed 
deliveries ; and the experience of the company 
alluded to was paralleled by that of fifty others, 
every one of which had its individual patterns and 
designs, so that probably fifty thousand needless 
variations in motors alone had required an addition 
of many millions of dollars to the investment already 
made in installations of electrical machinery. 

The speaker ended with a plea for cooperation 
among electrical engineers and manufacturers by 
some means like an interchange of products and a 



AIR SPRINGS AND ADDRESSES 227 

system of license agreements enabling one to obtain 
the use of another's patents on the payment of a 
royalty. And in order to establish a mutual working 
basis equally fair to all, he believed that the parties 
in interest, instead of calling for more Government 
regulation, might better organize a well-equipped 
and officered bureau of standardization and main- 
tain it at their joint expense. 

The same central idea animated several other 
speeches made during the same period. Coopera- 
tion and standardization seemed to Westinghouse 
the crying needs of the hour in all industries, in 
view of their saving of waste in money, thought, and 
effort. In an address prepared for delivery at the 
meeting of the American Society of Mechanical 
Engineers with the Institution of Mechanical En- 
gineers in London in the summer of 19 10, he took 
for his subject "The Electrification of Railways", 
and devoted himself to showing the imperative 
need for the selection of one electric system for 
universal use. Referring to the ambition once cher- 
ished by certain railway managers to individualize 
their roads by adopting for them gauges which would 
prevent the cars and locomotives of connecting 
lines from trespassing on their tracks, he recalled 
the fact that, as lately as 1878, there were in the 
United States eleven different gauges beside the 
standard gauge of 4 feet 8j- inches adopted by 
Stephenson and since become general. When the 
necessity for unification came to be recognized, the 
cost of changing gauges was very burdensome to 
the roads which had it to do, in some instances 



228 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

fastening a permanent debt upon them. He laid 
down as five fundamental requisites for standardiz- 
ing steam lines : a standard gauge of track, a stand- 
ard of interchangeable type of coupling for vehicles, 
a uniform interchangeable type of brake apparatus, 
interchangeable heat apparatus, and a uniform 
system of train signals. To these must be added, 
in the case of electric railways, three more : a supply 
of electricity of uniform quality as to voltage and 
periodicity ; conductors for this, so uniformly placed 
with reference to the rails that, without change of 
any kind, an electrically-fitted locomotive or car can 
collect its supply of current when on the lines of 
other companies ; and uniform apparatus for con- 
trol of electric supply, whereby two or more elec- 
trically-fitted locomotives or cars from different 
lines can be operated together from one locomotive 
or car. 

His repeated prophecy of the ultimate electrifica- 
tion of all the great railways remains still unfulfilled, 
but many transportation experts who scoffed at the 
notion when he first broached it afterward admitted 
to him that the change would be only a question of 
time. In the light of this, it seemed to him all im- 
portant that the choice of the uniform system should 
be made without more delay. Railway electrifica- 
tion, he argued, had so far been limited to small 
areas, usually where the unsuitableness of steam 
locomotives for tunnel and terminal service had 
compelled the substitution of electric motors there ; 
but these limited zones were expanding and after 
a time would meet ; and then the same conditions 



AIR SPRINGS AND ADDRESSES 229 

which had compelled the adoption of certain common 
standards for the steam railways would apply still 
more forcibly to the electric railways, and the cost 
of altering everything over would be a very serious 
matter. 

Another favorite line followed by Westinghouse 
in his prophecies had to do with the progressively 
increasing use of electricity in quarters where at 
first it had been slow in making its way. This was 
the burden of his speech to the Southern Commercial 
Congress at Atlanta in the spring of 191 1. The 
South, said he, was abundantly blessed with coal 
mines and waterfalls, and from these resources 
could be drawn the vital forces of industry and trans- 
portation. The magic agent which would take the 
energy of the South's hidden coal, her air, and her 
falling water, carry it by easy channels, and cause 
it to give the light of a million candles and the power 
of a thousand men, move great loads faster than 
horses can travel, produce heat without combustion, 
and unlock chemical bonds and release new materials, 
was electricity. The water courses in the Appala- 
chian Mountains could be made to develop from five 
to seven million horse power during the dry seasons 
of the year and a much larger quantity at other times. 
By the use of the alternating current, enough power 
could be taken from a single dynamo for operating 
telephone and telegraph lines, for producing light 
and heat, for running street cars and railway trains, 
for working mines and mills and factories, and for 
electrochemical operations. As it was possible to 
transmit power hundreds of miles from its source, 



230 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

water courses unavailable for other uses because of 
their inaccessibility or unwholesome surroundings 
could be made to furnish power to distant cities, 
and run factories planted on high and healthful 
sites, or on the outskirts of any town where labor is 
most plentiful and transportation facilities are best. 
He mentioned one power company in the South 
which at that time was drawing power from a number 
of different streams in different States, and lighting 
forty-five cities and towns, and furnishing current 
for six street-railway systems, besides keeping hun- 
dreds of motors at work for miscellaneous purposes. 

Lines of industry which could be successfully 
developed in the South by electric power, he added, 
were gold, copper, iron, and coal mining ; ore re- 
duction ; food canning ; manufacturing textiles, 
cement, fertilizers, lumber, furniture, paper, shoes 
and leather, and agricultural implements ; iron and 
steel making ; road building, and oil refining. More- 
over, experiments made by Sir Oliver Lodge indicated 
that the electric stimulation of plant growth might 
yet be made to produce wonderful results. 

This was his last notable public address, and its 
concluding passages are significant for their revela- 
tion of the backward and forward movements of his 
mind. His painful memories of the close of his 
connection with his Electric and Manufacturing 
Company were reflected in an earnest'plea for cumu- 
lative voting in the government of corporations, as 
a protection for the minority stockholders against 
the machinations of a majority clique. The final 
sentence of all has a most interesting ring in these 



AIR SPRINGS AND ADDRESSES 231 

days when militarism and preparedness are upper- 
most topics of popular discussion. Impressing upon 
young men the importance of learning the lessons 
of self-restraint and obedience to authority, and 
drawing for illustration upon the value of his own 
experiences as a soldier, he said: "The present 
preeminence of Germany in industrial matters arises 
very largely from the military training and discipline 
to which each of her citizens must submit." 



CHAPTER XVII 
A Big Man's Human Side 

An evening I shall always remember was passed 
in Pittsburgh late in January, i9i6.1f|The occasion 
was an annual dinner of the Veteran Employees' 
Association of the Westinghouse Electric and Man- 
ufacturing Company, to whose membership those 
persons are eligible who have been in the Company's 
employ for twenty years or longer. Several hundred 
diners, including a small group of guests at the 
speakers' table, sat down together, and a more im- 
pressive gathering I never attended. The strong, 
intelligent, and interested faces, the manly and 
mutually courteous bearing of these men of the 
bench and the machine shop, conveyed the finest 
of lessons in true American democracy ; and the 
speeches which followed the clearing of the tables 
told a yet more eloquent story, for they explained 
what had held this body of workers at their posts 
so many years in an era of fitful change. Every 
speaker had his contribution, large or small, to add 
to the common fund of reminiscence, and every 
story had for its central figure one powerful per- 
sonality ; and the acme was reached when, with 
an appropriate introduction, the curtain which 
concealed a large object hanging against the wall 



A BIG MAN'S HUMAN SIDE 233 

in the rear of the hall was drawn aside, and revealed 
a square bronze relief portrait of the hero of the 
evening, George Westinghouse. 

It was the work of the eminent sculptor, Lorado 
Taft, and contributed by the Association as a gift 
from its members to the Company they had served 
so long, to be hung in the main passageway of the 
mammoth building at East Pittsburgh, where every 
one could see it daily in going to and from his work. 
It represented the founder in the attitude he always 
preferred in the rare instances when he had con- 
sented to pose for a picture : seated in an armchair, 
his hands grasping the arms, his face full to the front, 
and his eyes aimed straight into those of his vis-a-vis, 
as if he had paused only for the moment in passing, 
and was preparing to rise and move on again as soon 
as released. It was the George Westinghouse of 
rapid action whom they all knew in life — earnest, 
tense, direct, aggressive, willful, forward-looking, 
regardless of obstacles, contemptuous of leisure, 
unsparing of self. Nature had written in that face 
the faults as well as the virtues of the soul behind it. 
The speeches of the evening had been equally impar- 
tial in their reflection of both. It was an experience 
meeting, not a mere council of eulogy. But when 
the whims and foibles, the eccentricities and incon- 
sistencies of the lost leader were touched upon, it 
was always in the genial spirit of real affection, and 
the balance cast between his triumphs and his failures 
left nothing to be desired by his best lover. A finer 
tribute of loyalty to one who was no longer where 
he could respond to it is impossible to imagine. 



234 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

Nor was this sentiment reserved simply for public 
display. Wherever I have gone among the officers 
and men of the Westinghouse companies, I have 
found the same attitude toward their late chief on 
the part of those who ever came into personal con- 
tact with him, no matter how slightly ; and the air 
of Pittsburgh is surcharged today with Westing- 
house legends and traditions, of which I cannot at- 
tempt to give more than a passing hint. 

Though modest and simple in manner, and friendly 
in his mode of approach to even the humblest of his 
employees, able to call a multitude of them by their 
given names, and everywhere known among them 
as "the Boss" or "the Old Man", not one would 
have ventured upon an unbecoming familiarity 
with him. Nature had stamped him with a dignity 
which made even the suggestion of such a thing 
impossible ; yet there was not a man who was afraid 
to come to him frankly when there was something 
that needed saying. It might be to meet a rebuff 
at the outset, but justice was sure to come later. 

Tucked in among the works at East Pittsburgh 
stood for some years an unpretentious den known 
as "the Old Man's shop." To it Westinghouse 
would repair when he came to the Works with an 
idea in mind to which he wished to give his undivided 
attention for a while. Thirty or forty mechanics 
and draftsmen were within speaking distance, ready 
at his call to drop whatever they were at and proceed 
to the development of his latest conceit. It made 
no difference where he was — in New York or 
Washington, or up in the Berkshire Hills, or traveling 



A BIG MAN'S HUMAN SIDE 235 

in his " movie home", the private car, Glen Eyre — 
his secretary was at his elbow ; and when a thought 
of apparent value occurred to him, he either dictated 
an outline of it, or sat down and made a sketch to 
mail to his experimental laboratory from that next 
stopping-place, preceding this if possible with full 
instructions by long-distance telephone, directly 
to the foreman whom he intrusted with the trans- 
lation of the theory into solid metal. Many 
amusing stories are told of this habit. "If Mr. 
Westinghouse," said one of his foremen the other day, 
"telephoned that a certain minor part was to be one 
sixteenth of an inch in diameter, and on his arrival 
he found it one eighth of an inch, he would send for 
the man responsible for tampering with his orders, 
and demand his reasons. If they were insufficient, 
the man received on the spot some candid admoni- 
tions about doing what he was told, and later per- 
haps a bit of discipline ; but if he made out a good 
case by showing that his change was wise, he was 
equally likely to be marked for promotion." 

A tireless and rapid worker himself, Westing- 
house found it difficult to understand any different 
habit on the part of a subordinate. He was chary 
of direct praise, and sometimes when a man had 
accomplished what would generally be considered 
a wonderful feat, he would show no appreciation of 
the effort. One day he sent a hurry order of some 
magnitude to a foreman who, anxious to make a 
record, set to work at it instantly with a gang of 
picked men. For two days and two nights they 
labored without rest and almost without food. 



236 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

Westinghouse turned up before the job was quite 
complete and wanted to know how far they had got 
with it. The foreman, with a thrill of pride, showed 
him the almost finished machine. His only comment 
was a whimsical : " Is that all you've done !" 

In spite of this outward attitude, he was inwardly 
most appreciative of faithful and efficient service. 
To others than the man immediately concerned, he 
was generous in awarding commendation where 
deserved, and his habit in this respect was felt by 
some of his older associates to have been overdone 
in favor of certain newcomers in his organizations 
before there had been a real test of their merits. 

Of a skilled mechanician who was one of his main- 
stays for years, he once demanded : 

"Miller, why are you always so slow about getting 
out any job I order? Why can't you be quick as 
Herris?" 

And of Mr. Herr, the next time they met : "Herr, 
why on earth can't you take example from Miller, 
and do things promptly?" 

Soon afterward, the two men chanced to come 
together on something, and- Miller asked : 

"What is it you have been doing for the Boss, 
Mr. Herr, that makes him always tell me how much 
quicker you are in your work than I am?" 

"Why, Miller," answered Herr, "that was the 
very question I was going to put to you!" 

On one occasion Herr got the better of these 
speeding-up methods, but with a highly character- 
istic sequel. He had just come home from a busi- 
ness trip and found awaiting him a message from 



A BIG MAN'S HUMAN SIDE 237 

his chief, who also had been out of town, telling him 
to have a certain casting made which was needed 
for immediate use at the Switch and Signal shops. 
It was Saturday night, but Herr lost no time in 
opening communication with one of the foremen 
at the Air-Brake Works and asking him whether he 
could not call a few men together and put this job 
through. The foreman did so, and bright and early 
on Sunday morning Herr hastened to join them at 
the Works. 

"Sam," he inquired, "how far along have you got, 
with that casting?" 

"It's done," answered the foreman, "but it's 
mighty hot still." 

"Never mind that. Have you a team that you 
can hitch up at once?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"Then carry the casting down to the Switch and 
Signal shops." 

The foreman obeyed. A few minutes later West- 
inghouse appeared. 

"Herr," said he, "did you get my message?" 

"I did." 

"When are you going to pour that casting?" 

"It's poured already." 

"Ha ! How soon can you get it out?" 

"It's out." 

"Is that so? Where is it?" 

"At the Switch and Signal shop." 

The speechlessness with which Westinghouse was 
smitten for perhaps two seconds, betrayed the depth 
of his astonishment ; but as usual he expressed no 



238 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

surprise, and bolting forthwith for the road, he 
called back over his shoulder : 

"Well, I'll go right down there myself and hustle 
those fellows up!" 

Among his other strictly human traits, Westing- 
house would occasionally act on first impulse, and 
not with the wisdom which is born of careful con- 
sideration. He was, however, quite as quick to 
repent as to act, when he saw he was in error. A 
foreman who, though they had always been the best 
of friends, happened to cross his path in one of his 
impulsive moments, received a severe rating for 
having failed to perform some practical impossi- 
bility. The rebuke itself was hard enough to bear, 
but might have been overlooked if it had not been 
hurled at the man in the presence of a number of 
his underlings — a circumstance which was liable, 
in his judgment, to be fatal to his authority. He 
sought his employer a few minutes later, and began, 
with respect in his manner but repressed wrath in 
his voice : 

"I think the time has come, Mr. Westinghouse, 
when we must part company. I can't rest quiet 
under such humiliation as you put upon me this 
morning. I am not obliged to, and I won't!" 

Westinghouse looked up from his writing with 
an air of good-humored deprecation. 

"Oh, come now!" he pleaded. "Remember that 
I am only human. When things go wrong, I am 
apt to blow off my feelings at the first person that 
gets in the way. The next time you see that I am 
in a bad temper, just hurry out of my reach. If I 



A BIG MAN'S HUMAN SIDE 239 

try to follow you up, don't pay any attention to me, 
but keep right on." 

Another foreman who usually was noted for 
minding his own business came to Westinghouse 
one day and stated his suspicions, with the specific 
facts which had aroused them, that certain officers 
of one of his companies in whom Westinghouse had 
till then felt the utmost confidence, were engaged 
in systematic graft. Westinghouse indignantly re- 
fused to listen to the charges, and his informant went 
away with a sense of having blundered, and given 
offense rather than assistance to the chief. Not 
very long thereafter, Westinghouse himself stumbled 
upon proofs which left him no alternative but to 
realize the truth, and he promptly dismissed the 
guilty men from office. Afterward he sought the 
loyal foreman and reproached him for not having 
insisted at first upon making the case clear. 

"But, Mr. Westinghouse," protested the man, 

"I said all I could, and you wouldn't listen to me." 

"Why on earth didn't you make me listen?" 

exclaimed Westinghouse, and then laughed in spite 

of himself. 

Coming into the Machine Works one morning 
with a bundle of papers in his hand, Westinghouse 
summoned Miller to his workroom. He had thought 
out something new on a line with which his mind 
had been busy since childhood, the invention of a 
perfect rotary engine. The present scheme was 
more elaborate than anything he had ever proposed 
before, involving an extraordinary internal arrange- 
ment with fans and other unusual accessories. At 



240 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

his request Miller gave a thorough examination to 
the drawings and specifications for the new device. 

"I want a model made like that," said the in- 
ventor. 

"Do you realize what you are ordering, Mr. 
Westinghouse ? " asked Miller. "It will cost a 
small fortune to build such a model." 

"Never mind, I want it done." 

"But the thing won't work in any event as you 
expect it to." 

"I know what I want. Go ahead and make it." 

Accordingly the model was made, at a large ex- 
pense. It did not take Westinghouse ten minutes 
to see that Miller's warning of its uselessness had 
been correct. 

"Mr. Westinghouse," said Miller, "I hated to 
see you throw your money into the ditch like 
that." 

"Oh," answered Westinghouse cheerfully, "it 
wasn't thrown away. Think how many men it 
kept employed ; and besides, it is one more step 
toward ultimate success." 

As has been indicated, Westinghouse was a strong 
believer in the virtue of having his own way. He 
had no liking for advice; he preferred to follow 
his instincts and issue his commands accordingly. 
There were a certain few men, however, who had 
made a mark in the world for their brilliancy of 
achievement on whose simple dicta he was some- 
times ready to hazard a large stake. One of these, 
an English physicist of great renown, had demon- 
strated, through the process of reasoning, that the 



A BIG MAN'S HUMAN SIDE 241 

extraction of heat from the atmosphere for the pur- 
pose of developing power was a theoretical possi- 
bility, and had in a general way indicated the method 
and type of machines that would be required in the 
process. He, however, stated that this apparatus 
would have to be so cumbersome and expensive as 
to make the scheme of no practical value. West- 
inghouse accepted the scientific basis as sound, 
but disagreed with respect to the impossibility of 
reducing it to practice. A comprehensive series 
of futile experiments, during which many ingenious 
devices were developed and constructed, compelled 
him to admit reluctantly that it was a tougher prob- 
lem than he had anticipated, and he finally conceded 
that his scientific friend was right, in both premises 
and conclusions. 

Westinghouse was so expert a practical mechanic 
that when he laid his hand actually to a bit of con- 
struction the men who worked near him used to 
say with a chuckle: "The Boss is on the job; all 
we have to do is to pass him the tools." In the 
drafting rooms he had a trick of dropping down at 
any time in front of a desk and busying himself 
with whatever drawings lay on its surface. Some- 
times he would reach out his right hand, and, with- 
out lifting his eyes from the paper before him, utter 
the single word : " Pencil ! " The draftsman next 
him would place a pencil in the outstretched fingers, 
and with this he would amend the drawing in some 
particular or outline a new one very rapidly, pausing 
only when he discovered that he had made a mark 
which he had better change. Then, still without 



242 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

the slightest diversion of the eyes, out would come 
the hand again, and with it the single word : "Rub- 
ber!" Into the hand would go the rubber as the 
pencil had gone a moment earlier, and he would 
erase the rejected line, brush away the dust with 
his little finger, and resume drawing in a silence as 
profound as before. 

It was a standing joke among his lieutenants 
that they never could guess "where the Old Man 
was going to break out next." One who was attend- 
ing to some business in Denver suddenly received, 
out of a clear sky, a telegram ordering him to go to 
Idaho and hunt up a certain person, and referring 
him, by way of explanation, to an article published 
in the latest issue of a well-known weekly news- 
paper. This proved to be a story about a wonderful 
agricultural discovery recently made. An Idaho 
farmer, it said, having gone to the Yukon country 
on a hunt for gold, had accidentally stumbled there 
upon a field of wheat which, for height of stalk and 
fullness of head, excelled anything he had ever seen 
or heard of. He carried away some of it, and, 
after his return to Idaho, planted the kernels; 
their yield the next season was most abundant, 
and absolutely true to type. His discovery, the 
story concluded, had caused great excitement 
among the Northwestern farmers, who were flock- 
ing to his ranch and buying seed of him at one 
dollar a pound. 

The recipient of the telegram went to Idaho at 
once, hunted up the man, and found him, as de- 
scribed, doing a thriving business. Later com- 



A BIG MAN'S HUMAN SIDE 243 

munications from Westinghouse revealed the fact 
that he had happened to read the article, and been 
suddenly struck with a fancy for buying the farmer's 
entire stock of seed, to use for the rapid replenish- 
ment of the American wheat supply. His idea was 
that this might aid to solve one of the food problems 
of our poor by making it possible presently to reduce 
the price of bread. 

All who have worked under him agree as to the 
marvelous gift he had for inspiring his subordinates. 
This was due not only to his personal magnetism, 
but to his habit of giving every one a chance. He 
used to take heavy contracts for things that would 
need a large amount of development work, and then 
call upon his experts to turn them out ; and every 
man knew what it would mean to make a success 
of the task. Indeed, the reason Westinghouse was 
always in the lead among the inventors of his genera- 
tion was that he commanded the talents and the 
best efforts of many able young men to supplement 
his own. Toward the group upon whom he specially 
leaned he had as strong a sense of loyalty as they had 
toward him. At times when the money market 
was tight he was obliged to limit their cash salaries 
to dimensions which he frankly said were insufficient, 
but he would make it up to them by generous gifts 
of stock. 

He had a large way of doing everything. Frank 
H. Taylor, who in February, 1902, was promoted 
to be second vice-president of the Electric & Manu- 
facturing Company, preserves, as if it were a patent 
of nobility, a very short letter he received at that 



244 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

time from Westinghouse, stating what would be ex- 
pected of him. "The duties of the second vice- 
president," ran the letter — 

" will be general, comprehending the important con- 
tract relations of the company, the sale of the com- 
pany's products, and general supervision of the 
company's properties and operations, wherever 
situated. He will also assume final responsibility, 
subject to the president, for the conduct of the 
general offices, and the purchasing, store and cost 
departments ; he will advise with the other officers 
with respect to the duties assigned to them, and 
will participate in and preside at the meetings of 
the heads of the various branches of the company's 
business." 

"Here," said Mr. Taylor, in showing me the 
letter, "are ten lines of typewriting, clearly turning 
over to my management a property of, say, sixty 
million dollars in value — an example of simplicity 
and directness of thought and expression which it 
would be hard to match." 

Nikola Tesla, who perfected his inventions in 
alternating-current apparatus while associated with 
George Westinghouse and receiving his financial 
support, once publicly paid his patron this cordial 
tribute : "He is one of those few men who conscien- 
tiously respect intellectual property, and who ac- 
quire their right to use inventions by fair and equi- 
table means. . . . Had other industrial firms and 
manufacturers been as just and liberal as Mr. West- 
inghouse, I should have had many more of my in- 
ventions in use than I now have." 

The same sort of testimony is heard wherever 



A BIG MAN'S HUMAN SIDE 245 

one goes. Hugh Rodman, for instance, founder 
and head of the Rodman Chemical Company of 
East Pittsburgh, described to me his experience in 
these words : 

"For several years I was research engineer for 
the Machine Company, making such investigations 
as Mr. Westinghouse or the management directed, 
and, as a matter of course, turning over the results 
to the company. One investigation carried me to 
the case-hardening department, where, after con- 
siderable work, I developed patentable processes 
and materials which apparently had commercial 
value apart from the company's ordinary activities. 
These I reported as usual, and the question was 
raised as to who properly owned them. I held that, 
as the company was not interested in chemical 
manufacturing, it should retain only a working right 
to the processes, leaving me to patent them for my 
own benefit in other respects. The company argued 
that, its money and equipment having been used, 
the processes belonged to it. We appealed to Mr. 
Westinghouse as arbitrator. His decision was that, 
though the company might legally maintain its 
right to the inventions, he would make no move to 
do so, and he not only turned over to me the entire 
rights in the inventions, but offered me enough 
capital to erect and run a small factory, of which he 
left me in full control. I feel great satisfaction in 
adding that the investment proved worth while, 
and in bearing this witness to his fine generosity!" 



CHAPTER XVIII 
"The Old Man" and His Employees 

When George Westinghouse established himself 
in business as a manufacturer of air brakes, in Feb- 
ruary, 1870, he had a rather primitive establishment. 
The first mechanic he hired was Christopher Horrocks, 
who at this writing is still in active service at the 
Air Brake Works in Wilmerding, as keenly interested 
in his duties and as full of enthusiasm as he ever was. 
When he came in, the factory was near the corner of 
Liberty Avenue and Twenty-fifth Street, in a build- 
ing of which the main walls are standing today; 
it was then, he says, unfinished, the brickwork being 
up but neither window-framing nor doors being in 
place. The equipment consisted of "a steam engine 
about the size of a kitchen chair, a boiler two sheets 
in length, and a section of shafting." One man — 
Ralph Baggaley, whose acquaintance we have al- 
ready made — constituted the entire office force ; 
another, named Welsh, combined the functions of 
time-keeper, foreman, and superintendent ; and Hor- 
rocks was the "horny-fisted son of toil" who did the 
work requiring brawn and muscle. 

By degrees other men were brought in, till the shop 
began to assume a very busy air. Young Westing- 
house was so approachable and pleasant-mannered 



"THE OLD MAN" AND HIS EMPLOYEES 247 

as to command the most cordial liking from his little 
staff. He also introduced several innovations which 
naturally heightened this feeling. After his return 
from his first visit to England, for instance, he an- 
nounced that work would be suspended every Satur- 
day at noon, so that the men could have a half-holiday 
to enjoy as they pleased without trespassing upon 
their Sunday rest. It was the first move of that kind 
that had ever been made in Pittsburgh, and, so far 
as known, in the United States, and it proved not 
only popular but in a larger sense profitable, for it 
gave the new shop a unique distinction among the 
local industries. Meanwhile, in the autumn of the 
first year, he had invited the entire force, by that 
time embracing fifteen men, to dine with him at one 
of the city hotels on Thanksgiving day. The dinner 
was in the interest of sociability and mutual under- 
standing, and was repeated annually till it became 
impracticable on account of increasing numbers ; 
as a substitute, the practice was adopted of presenting 
every employee, great or small, with a turkey to 
crown his Thanksgiving dinner with his family. 

This custom continued for more than thirty years ; 
but the pay roll meanwhile had swelled steadily till 
the fowls to be given away exceeded a dozen tons in 
weight, and were brought to the distributing point 
in big refrigerator cars. Also, there had become 
connected with the Works not merely the generation 
they started with, but its successor ; and, on the per 
capita basis of allotment, several turkeys were liable 
to find their way into a single family, while another, 
perhaps larger, would get only one. A certain father, 



248 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

for example, had seven unmarried sons working with 
him in the Air Brake shops, and to that household 
went eight turkeys, though only one or two could be 
put to beneficial use. From such lavishness sprang 
up a habit, in large families, of resorting to some 
device like a shooting-match, a raffle, or a game of 
cards, for disposing of their surplus poultry. At the 
suggestion of John F. Miller, then secretary of the 
Company but now its president, Mr. Westinghouse 
decided to call a halt on what was becoming a serious 
abuse, and to substitute for it a pension system, for 
which the ten thousand dollars or thereabout that 
had been annually spent on turkeys, if suitably 
capitalized, would make a very comfortable nucleus. 
The principal sum thus evolved, amounting to one 
hundred and ten thousand dollars, was set aside and 
so invested as to produce a regular annual income, 
from which were paid pensions, ranging from twenty 
to one hundred dollars a month, to all employees 
who had rendered long and faithful service and be- 
come disabled, or reached the age of retirement 
— voluntary at sixty-five years, or compulsory at 
seventy. The widows, children, and other dependent 
relatives of the pensioners were placed on the roll 
at rates that varied according to specified conditions. 
The company made itself responsible for the pension 
fund and for any deficiencies of income that might 
occur. 

Prior to the introduction of the pension system, 
there was established a relief department, which, 
though the company assumed the cost of foundation 
and maintenance, and held the principal fund in 



"THE OLD MAN" AND HIS EMPLOYEES 249 

trust and paid interest on it, was relieved of all taint 
of gratuity by a roll of supporting membership, like 
a mutual insurance association. Both fees and bene- 
fits were graded according to the wages or salaries 
of the members, and varied from a fee of fifty cents 
a month, earning benefits of $5 a week for a disabled 
member, to a monthly fee of $1.50 with a weekly 
benefit of $15 ; and on the death of any member, of 
whatever class, $150 was paid to his heirs. Medical 
examinations were made, and attendance in case of 
accident furnished, free of charge to the members, 
by a physician or surgeon at the headquarters of 
the department. These advantages were later dupli- 
cated in the main by the Electric and Manufacturing 
Company, but the Air Brake Company has enlarged 
and liberalized them by degrees till in many respects 
they are today unique in the industrial world. 

At all the Westinghouse works, the ideal kept con- 
stantly in view was cooperation. The desire of the 
founder, as manifested in such ways as I have just 
been describing, was to have every person connected 
with one of his companies, whether as officer, agent, 
or employee, feel that he was part of the concern, 
that its interests were his interests, and that its 
personnel was one big family. To that end every 
proper encouragement was given to the workmen 
to organize clubs and societies among themselves 
for the promotion of good fellowship and the per- 
petuation of the memories of old times. The effect 
of such a policy shows itself in the pride with which 
the older men in the works refer to their long connec- 
tion with their Company, much as so many veteran 



250 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

servants of the Government point to the stars and 
chevrons they wear. It was in pursuance of this 
cooperative ideal not less than for the moral and 
physical good to be derived from them, that the 
Westinghouse companies have spent large sums on 
Christian Association and Welfare buildings, and 
presented them to the communities adjacent to their 
works, so that the employees and their families could 
have facilities for wholesome recreation out of 
working hours. 

Another ambition entertained by George Westing- 
house was to educate his own people, as far as prac- 
ticable, for their duties under him, instead of leaving 
them to pick up their technical instruction hap- 
hazard. More has been done in this direction by 
the Electric and Manufacturing Company and the 
Machine Company than by any other of the Westing- 
house corporations - — doubtless because the work 
there required more systematically trained faculties. 
In East Pittsburgh is maintained a technical night 
school which offers, at a nominal expense, a very 
good drill in the fundamentals of mathematics, en- 
gineering, shop practice, and mechanical work, to 
any youth who is unable to study in the daytime ; 
the boys who attend it fraternize like members of a 
college class, and get a great deal of social enjoyment 
as well as mental stimulation out of their connection 
with it. The Machine Company supports an ap- 
prenticeship course for male pupils sixteen years of 
age or older. The apprentices are required to sign 
articles for a certain number of years, are paid at a 
modest rate for every hour they work, and at the 



"THE OLD MAN" AND HIS EMPLOYEES 251 

close of a successful course receive a present of $100. 
Mr. C. R. Dooley, an alumnus of a Western univer- 
sity, with a technical education and a strong bent 
for teaching and social enterprises, makes an annual 
tour of the colleges of the country, picking up mem- 
bers of their graduating classes who have a taste for 
some line of engineering, and who seem to offer 
promising material for the Westinghouse working 
corps. If they are taken on, he keeps in close touch 
with them through the medium of- a young men's 
club of which he is an active manager. 

Nor are the girls in the works overlooked in the 
general welfare scheme. They have a school where, 
for a few dollars a year, they can put in their after- 
noons and evenings studying the commercial branches 
or stenography, typewriting, cooking, sewing, house- 
hold art, or music. Though not an advertised cham- 
pion of the cause commonly known as "women's 
rights", Westinghouse always had strongly at heart 
the interests of the women in his employ, aiming not 
only to give every one of them her chance, but seeing 
to it that she had everything within reason done for 
her health and comfort. When he built his works 
at East Pittsburgh, almost the first thing he noticed 
in inspecting their outside appearance was the ab- 
sence of proper sidewalks and overhead protection. 
"This won't do," said he. "We employ a great 
many women, and when it storms they will be ex- 
posed to the rain in their thin dresses, or walk in 
unprotected shoes from the doors to the car-tracks. 
They will catch cold, and if any harm comes to them 
it will be our fault. We must have a viaduct." So, 



252 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

although the buildings had already cost so much 
that he was under sharp criticism from his shorter- 
sighted stockholders, a fine steel and concrete viaduct 
went up without delay ; and many a young woman 
undoubtedly owes her immunity from illness to his 
thoughtfulness. 

Perhaps the most characteristic provision made 
for the girls is the lunch-room at the Electric and 
Manufacturing Works, where they can take their 
noon meal under restful and economical conditions. 
It stands at the end of a spacious aisle, and contains 
thirty-five tables with accommodations for more 
than a thousand women. The tables are neatly 
covered with enameled oilcloth, and hot coffee, 
sugar, and cream are contributed by the Company, 
together with two maid-servants to keep the room 
in order, heat the coffee, wash the dishes, etc. What 
gives it its distinctive Westinghouse touch is the way 
the work of attendance is methodized so that the 
two maids can do it all without difficulty. The coffee 
is heated in fifteen-gallon urns, and carried to the 
tables on a truck specially designed for the purpose, 
provided with pneumatic tires and springs to prevent 
breaking or chipping the chinaware ; and when the 
lunchers disperse the dishes go into a machine 
operated by a motor and controlled by one of the 
maids, which washes and dries them automatically. 

The fact that the works of the Air Brake Company, 
the Union Switch and Signal Company, the Electric 
and Manufacturing Company, and the Machine 
Company, though in separate boroughs, practically 
adjoin one another along a line of railroad that runs 



"THE OLD MAN" AND HIS EMPLOYEES 253 

through Turtle Creek Valley, not only gives them a 
community of interest in many matters, but facili- 
tates official inspection, encourages the social min- 
gling of the employees, and fosters the adoption by one 
company of the advanced ideas of another as soon 
as they have proved their worth by experiment. As 
a result, not infrequently a capable workman in one 
of the Westinghouse plants has been asked by his 
neighbors to accept office as burgess or councilor 
and has made a most creditable public record. 

Naturally, where fifty thousand men and women 
are employed, more than half the number at some 
specialized form of skilled industry, the eternal labor 
question has not held itself aloof. Agitators have 
from time to time tried to stir up strife between 
managers and men, but with little effect. It was 
the consistent policy of George Westinghouse to 
treat with his own workmen, neither interfering in 
the affairs of other employers nor himself submitting 
to any dictation from without. His general attitude 
with regard to the important question of organized 
labor is a matter of record. Statements have been 
erroneously made that he opposed it. He recognized 
the absolute right of men to form associations • for 
protective and beneficial purposes, holding strongly, 
however, to the view that there should be no inter- 
ference with the rights of those who were not thus 
associated. This position was well reflected in the 
correspondence he had with Samuel Gompers in 
April, 1903. Mr. Gompers wrote that he had been 
informed that the Westinghouse interests were op- 
posed to union labor. Mr. Westinghouse answered 



254 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

that all the managers of his companies were earnestly 
striving to better existing conditions and always 
ready to lend a helping hand ; adding : 

"They are a unit with me in wishing that our 
employees should not join such organizations as 
would render them liable to be involved in agitations 
or disputes which have no reference to their work or 
their employment with the Westinghouse Companies. 
All workmen are guaranteed the same rights and 
privileges with us, whether they are affiliated with 
organized labor or not." 

He firmly believed that all the advantages, with 
practically none of the drawbacks that go with the 
ordinary labor unions, could be realized by a union 
formed of the employees of each manufacturing 
industry without affiliation with other similar or- 
ganizations. This, in effect, is the condition existing 
at the Air Brake Works. All the virtues of what is 
called "collective bargaining" are available for the 
benefit of its employees, and the Company, on its 
part, is enabled to take broader views and adopt 
more liberal policies than if it were hampered by 
outside influences having no real knowledge of the 
business or conditions surrounding it. 

In short, by maintaining a high standard of wages, 
encouraging the operatives to make this continuously 
possible by turning out the finest quality of products 
in the market, and providing for the welfare of the 
old and infirm workmen, Westinghouse avoided any 
serious labor trouble. As we have already seen, 
when financial clouds hung over him as head of a 
great company, his employees hastened to the rescue 



"THE OLD MAN" AND HIS EMPLOYEES 255 

in a spirit that reflected equal credit upon them and 
him. No man who applied for work had ever been 
questioned as to his membership of a trade union, 
a church, or a political party, and none had been dis- 
charged except for cause, or — as happened in a few 
instances for a brief period — because business was 
too dull to permit of carrying the maximum force. 
Even here, however, "the Old Man's" kindness of 
heart occasionally played a part at odds with his 
selfish advantage. Such was the case when the year 
1896, opening with slack prospects, found the Electric 
and Manufacturing Company's works so] overmanned 
that, in the interest of prudence, four or five hundred 
laborers were likely to be laid off in midwinter. 
Westinghouse sent for one of his lieutenants and in- 
quired into the matter. When he saw how serious 
the situation was, he said : 

" I am going away for a while, but I can't leave till 
I have made some arrangement for continuing those 
men at work, at least till the cold weather is over. 
Haven't we anything in the shops that needs over- 
hauling?" 

"No, sir," answered the man, "not a thing that 
I know of now." 

"What has become of that load of stuff we put 
into the loft some time ago to get it out of the way ? " 

"It is there still, and it's practically all scrap. 
There's nothing in the lot that we could possibly 
make use of by repairing it." 

"Well, never mind, get it down and do something 
to it — I don't care much what, as long as these 
fellows are employed. If that won't answer, bring 



256 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

out some billets and have them shaped into squares 
or hexagons." 

"But, Mr. Westinghouse, it would mean a tre- 
mendous waste." 

"No, it wouldn't. Nothing will be wasted that 
keeps the wives and children of all these men from 
suffering this winter. Do as I tell you." 

And his orders were obeyed, with the result 
that hundreds of workmen remained on the pay roll 
through the inclement season with nothing but 
humanity as an excuse for keeping them there. 

Again, in 1899, about a dozen faithful employees 
of the Air Brake Company attained the age of seventy 
just before they had finished the full twenty years' 
service required to entitle them to pensions. Ac- 
cording to its strict letter, the rule must have been 
enforced against them on the 9th of September, and 
they would have lost their pensions though too old 
to remain in the Company's service or to obtain 
work elsewhere. When, almost at the last moment, 
Mr. Westinghouse learned of their plight, he at once 
called the directors together, and, by the force of his 
personal influence, procured an amendment to the 
regulations postponing till the 1st of October the 
date when the exclusion rule must take effect. 

A like trait manifested itself in other ways. Once 
he descended with such vigor upon a new mechanic 
who had spoiled a minor casting that the offender, 
who had not yet had a chance to "measure the Old 
Man up", was nervously unstrung. A more ex- 
perienced associate consoled him by saying: "Oh, 
the Boss doesn't really mean much by that. The 



"THE OLD MAN" AND HIS EMPLOYEES 257 

next time he starts to roast you, just tell him your 
wife is sick." It was a familiar proverb at the works 
that any tale of distress among his employees aroused 
the sympathy of Westinghouse at once, and changed 
his severity to gentleness. 

He had become interested in a copper mine in 
Arizona, when a neighboring customs officer, smitten 
with a spasm of superserviceable zeal, swooped down 
upon the property and arrested about thirty of the 
unnaturalized Mexican miners on a groundless charge, 
threw them into a local jail in midsummer, and began 
a criminal prosecution against their employer. As 
soon as the news reached Westinghouse that the 
unfortunates were suffering maltreatment, he ignored 
all considerations of his own possible loss, and con- 
centrated his entire attention on the fate of his men, 
telegraphing his representative on the ground to bail 
them out at any cost and see that no further harm 
came to them. The case was eventually dropped by 
the Government, but not till Westinghouse had spent 
a great deal of money in undoing the effect of this 
act of official stupidity. 

With all his generosity of spirit, he could not forgive 
ingratitude. A poor Hungarian who had recently 
come to the works and could speak almost no English 
was suffering from an ulcerated tooth which grew 
steadily worse till the doctor told him he could get 
no relief except from a serious operation. The man 
was in despair. He could not afford the sacrifice of 
wages which would be involved in his taking time off 
to go to a hospital, and he feared that, with his ig- 
norance of our language, he might not be able to 



258 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

find another place if he lost this one. Westinghouse, 
as soon as his case was made known, ordered that he 
be sent to a hospital and his wages paid him during 
his absence, and also gave him a sum of money to 
meet any unforeseen expense to which he might be 
put before his recovery. 

On the strength of this incident, one of the higher 
paid employees, an Austrian who had grown homesick, 
was moved to play upon the sympathies of so k : nd 
a patron, and worked up a mock case of sto .a, 

for which a sea voyage and a visit to a cercain 
specialist in Austria were said to hold forth the only 
hope of a cure. Down went Westinghouse's hand 
into his pocket and the man was sent abroad by the 
next available steamer. After a pleasant sojourn 
at his old home he returned, and in an expansive 
mood boasted to some of his boon companions how 
he had "played it on the Old Man." The story 
reached Westir nouse's ears and the swindler was 
packed off * i incredible speed. As his position 
in the wc ' as one that required a peculiar trainr 
he was u .oible to find other employment without . 
certificate of merit, but when it came to granting 
any kind of concession he found the soft heart of his 
employer turned as hard as flint. 



CHAPTER XIX 
A Trio of Homes 

In the matter of homes George Westinghouse was 
me han commonly favored, having three that 
were permanent and two that were movable. In the 
permanent homes, at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 
Lenox, Massachusetts, and Washington, D. C, his 
wife was the presiding genius, and her word there 
was law. Of the temporary homes, one was a hotel 
in New York City, liable to change from year to 
year ; the other was a private railway car called 
the Glen Eyre, with commodious sleeping quarters, 
dining room, kitchen, and office-gj Wherever he 
might be, this was always held in ,. ^iness for his 

^upancy, with his secretary and oth*_ ^panions, 

d, attached to the most convenient ti, , [( ,, it bore 
him hither and yon without interruption of any busi- 
ness he happened to have in hand at the time. 

As we have already seen, his house on the eastern 
outskirts of Pittsburgh was bought in 1 871. It was 
built of brick, in the villa style of architecture, with 
the square tower and Mansard roof then so popular, 
and stood in the midst of an attractive plot of ground 
on a slight eminence close to the local railway station, 
so that he had only a few minutes' walk to reach the 
train which bore him daily into the city. To avoid 



260 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

a more roundabout route in descending to the level 
on which the tracks ran, he laid out a cross-path from 
the house door to the corner of the lawn, and built 
a small tunnel from that point to the station. To 
this estate Mrs. Westinghouse had given the name 
Solitude, because that seemed most appropriate 
to the retreat where nightly her husband could sepa- 
rate himself from the noise and bustle of the rushing 
world in which he passed his days. When they first 
moved into the house they had not the means to 
furnish all of it, so the drawing-room was left as it 
was, and a smaller room on the opposite side of the 
entrance hall was fitted for social and family pur- 
poses. Later, as their circumstances improved, 
they had the whole house refurnished with some 
elaborateness, besides extending it to the rear so as 
to add a spacious and high-ceiled dining room. 
Westinghouse's favorite place for sitting with his 
friends during the winter season was a square hall a 
little back from the main entrance, flanked by an 
angular staircase and containing an open fireplace. 
In the warm weather he enjoyed spending his eve- 
nings on the porch. He was always a happy host, 
and rarely a day passed when a few of his friends — 
most frequently his business associates and their 
wives — did not dine with him. When some es- 
pecially perplexing question was occupying his mind, 
he might slip away from the party after dinner and 
seek a little library upstairs where he could be quiet 
and concentrate his thoughts for a while. If he and 
his guests had become involved in a discussion which 
could be illuminated by a diagram, he would call 



A TRIO OF HOMES 261 

them into the billiard room and spread his papers 
on the green baize table, over which the group would 
bend with their heads close together, sometimes for 
an hour or more. 

When I was at Solitude early in 19 15, the house 
stood just as he and his wife had left it, except that 
it had been stripped of most of the finer furniture, 
and the bric-a-brac and curios with which they had 
filled it as souvenirs of their repeated trips to the old 
world. The walls sent back echoes of every footstep, 
and there was a ghostly suggestion as one walked 
through it and came suddenly upon a huge photo- 
graph of Mr. and Mrs. Westinghouse as they ap- 
peared during their first sojourn in London. The 
two figures were about one quarter life-size, and the 
husband's face, with its heavy crown of dark hair 
and its drooping mustache, appeared in profile, 
looking down at his wife, who was seated in front 
of him with her full face turned to the observer. The 
resemblance of the George Westinghouse of the '7o's 
to the George Westinghouse of forty years later was 
so strong as to be fairly haunting. Another potent 
reminder of him was to be found in the festoons of 
webbing-sheathed wires which followed the lines of 
the entry ceiling and mounted to the second story ; 
for, when he had the house equipped for electric 
lighting, he forbade the mechanics to cut into the 
woodwork, insisting on having the wires left free so 
that he could make any changes he wished when he 
believed he had hit upon a new idea. Thus he tested 
by actual experience every suggestion in the line of 
lighting that came into his mind. 



262 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

At one side of the house was a vegetable garden, 
and in front were Mrs. Westinghouse's flower beds 
and a winding grape trellis. At the rear was a stable, 
in the cellar of which, as the premises were gradually 
improved, were placed the lighting and heating 
plants, the wires and pipes being conducted to the 
house through a subway large enough for a man to 
walk in. The construction of this underground pas- 
sage furnished a lively sensation for the Pittsburgh 
newspapers, which ventured all kinds of guesses as 
to its purpose. By that time Westinghouse had 
become so prominent a figure locally that some of the 
press commentators, knowing his distaste for ordinary 
publicity, felt sure he was taking this means of making 
his way back and forth without observation while 
engaged on some new invention. 

It was at Solitude that the natural gas experi- 
ment was made, as described in an earlier chapter. 
It was here, also, that many distinguished guests 
from abroad were entertained when attracted to 
Pittsburgh by what they had heard of the wonderful 
system of administration in its mills and shops. 
Conspicuous among them were Prince Albert, now 
King of the Belgians, and Lord Kelvin, between 
whom and Westinghouse had sprung up a very warm 
friendship, having its origin in their community of 
tastes and interests. 

The Massachusetts home was not acquired till 
some time in the '8o's, when Mrs. Westinghouse, 
whose health had for some time been not of the best, 
was advised by her physicians to try the effect of 
mountain air, and with her husband passed a large 



A TRIO OF HOMES 263 

part of one season in the heart of the Berkshire Hills. 
Both Mr. and Mrs. Westinghouse became fascinated 
with the country about Lenox, and, after giving it a 
fair trial, Mrs. Westinghouse expressed a wish that 
they had a country home in such a place where she 
could spend her summers, living most of the time in 
the open air and directing the improvement and care 
of the grounds. They looked together over a num- 
ber of eligible sites, and presently fixed upon the 
Schenck farm, situated in the corner where the towns 
of Lenox, Lee, and Stockbridge come together, and 
comprising about one hundred acres with a well- 
built house already on it. This property they bought 
in November, 1887. The next year they bought an 
adjoining piece of the Clark farm, containing some 
forty-one acres and a number of buildings, and the 
year after that another tract of twelve acres from the 
Smith estate, bordered for a considerable stretch by 
a shore of Laurel Lake. With this they rested for a 
while, employing the interval in improving the land 
they had purchased and watching for a good op- 
portunity to obtain other parcels along the lakeside. 
Their chance did not come for ten years, and then a 
series of purchases, mostly on the shore, more than 
doubled their holdings. Thereafter additions were 
made at irregular intervals, till by the end of 191 r 
this estate, which they had named Erskine Park in. 
honor of Mrs. Westinghouse's family name, com- 
passed a total of nearly six hundred acres. The 
Schenck house had been enlarged and made over to 
fit the needs of its new owners, and the family had 
established themselves there in October, 1890. 



264 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

The combination of climate, surroundings, and 
occupation proved most beneficial to Mrs. Westing- 
house. Always fond of flowers, she came to take an 
almost childlike delight in all growing things ; and 
here were lawns to be laid out, old trees to be trimmed 
or thinned, saplings to be transplanted, and shrub- 
bery to be disposed so as to produce certain landscape 
effects. The estate must be supplied also with drive- 
ways and paths, the slopes would need proper grading, 
swamp land would have to be made wholesome, and 
dry soil provided with means of water. All this 
meant a deal of unskilled labor supplementary to 
the initial work of trained engineers and gardening 
experts ; the task extended over a series of years, 
and Mrs. Westinghouse welcomed the chance it 
afforded her to help many poor fellows who lost their 
employment by the panic of 1893, and whose families 
would have suffered but for some such godsend. 

How much good her own share of this work did 
her was shown when the improvements had reached 
a stage which called for the enclosure of the park, 
and a man was summoned from Pittsburgh to take 
measurements for a fence. He was somewhat 
amused when Mrs. Westinghouse, the semi-invalid 
of a few years before, proposed to accompany him 
on his walk around the park, so as to advise with him 
regarding certain details ; but his amusement gave 
way to astonishment when she not only made the 
circuit without any apparent discomfort, but ac- 
tually walked him down, so that he had to stop and 
rest before his tour was complete. 

One of the least attractive features of the line 



A TRIO OF HOMES 265 

where the Schenck and Clark farms met was a marshy 
tract, studded in part with half-matured willows. 
The suggestion that she drain this and carry the water 
off in tiles was too purely utilitarian to appeal to her, 
and she decided to turn the swamp into a lake, draw- 
ing upon Laurel Lake for whatever additional water 
was needed, and with a bit of judicious pruning, use 
the willow copse as part of a picturesque background 
of foliage. As the artificial lake, following with its 
boundaries the lines of the water-charged soil, was 
narrow in parts, a few bridges were thrown across 
the straits. Two of these, at the most exposed points, 
were built of marble, while the others, half hidden 
among the willows, were of iron, infusing into the 
scene, with their weblike construction and their half 
concealment among the trees, a Japanese effect. 

When it came to running the lines of the paths 
and roadways, Mrs. Westinghouse had a most defi- 
nite conception of what she wished. The engineers 
arrived with their technical instruments, prepared 
to do everything themselves ; but she went out every 
day and worked with them, directing instead of tak- 
ing directions. She preferred a homely device of 
rope and pegs to the best brass and glass apparatus 
they could bring, and with her own hands she would 
hold the end of a rope while the men swung it around 
and marked its course with stakes till they had got 
every curve just to suit her. Sixty acres of the level 
part of the park was devoted to ornamental lawn, 
and a considerable area on the upland to a deer 
paddock. In the midst of one of the broad stretches 
near the lake was built a pavilion, where band con- 



266 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

certs were given occasionally on fine summer after- 
noons. There were tennis courts close by, also. 

A distinguishing mark of Erskine Park was its 
system of white carriage drives. They were visible 
from the public highway, and never failed to excite 
comment from strangers passing the gates. Their 
whiteness was due to the finely crushed marble used 
for surfacing them. Soon after purchasing the land 
for the estate, Mr. Westinghouse selected a site for 
a deep well, and started drilling, but at a depth of 
five hundred feet ran into a "cap" of marble, of the 
same quality as the product of the famous Lee 
quarries. With the eye of the ever practical man, 
he saw at once the use to which this could be put, 
and took a constant satisfaction in the sense that 
there never could be any neglect of the upkeep of his 
drives without his promptly discovering the blot on 
the pure white surface. 

A big barn stood near the house when the Schenck 
place was bought, and, as it was not required for its 
original purposes, a question arose as to its disposal. 
One rainy day Mrs. Westinghouse went out to look 
it over, and was struck with the idea of turning it 
into a recreation-house. Accordingly the mows and 
bins were emptied, the lower ground floor — for the 
building stood on two levels — was fitted up with 
pantry and kitchen appliances, dressing rooms, and 
the like, and the entire upper ground floor was cleared 
of permanent obstructions and equipped for a gigantic 
club or living room, with books and pictures, card 
tables and lounging chairs everywhere, and gymnastic 
apparatus, a bowling alley and a billiard table so 



A TRIO OF HOMES 267 

placed as to be least in the way if the floor had to be 
cleared for dancing, a reception, or a hunt breakfast. 

Against the wall were hung from time to time 
numberless framed photographs, many of them bear- 
ing the autographs of their subjects or of the artists 
who took them, and nearly every one having a story 
connected with it. Here were portraits of musicians 
and actors, men of letters and doctors in various 
sciences with whom the family were on terms of 
friendship. Mingled with these were the portraits 
of relatives or childhood associates, and one of an 
interesting girl in whom George Westinghouse be- 
lieved he had discovered a genius, and whom he sent 
abroad for a thorough education in music. For per- 
fection of workmanship, the amateur photographs 
of Albert Kapteyn, a Dutch gentleman, easily bore 
off the palm ; their subjects were of the genre order, 
but most of them were outdoor views in Holland, 
England, Scotland, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, 
and Spain. 

On the tops of the bookshelves were grouped a few 
of the hunting trophies obtained by the present 
George Westinghouse while a lad. He had impor- 
tuned his parents for a gun till at last his mother 
consented to give him one if he would agree to shoot 
only a single specimen of any kind of wild creature. 
Under this contract he brought her his birds and 
beasts, and she had them mounted by a taxidermist 
and added to the collection of family memorials. 

Mrs. Westinghouse took the keenest pride in what 
she jocosely termed her farming. Live stock was 
her special hobby, and she was a regular exhibitor 



268 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

at the annual horse show in Lenox. Her farm horses, 
which never failed to receive some flattering award, 
carried off in one year the first, second, and third 
prizes. The walls of her greenhouses bristled with 
certificates from the Lenox Horticultural Society, 
of honors won by her gardener, Edward J. Norman, 
for his displays at the local Florist Show. Her herd 
of fine milch cows, varying in number from twenty 
to twenty-five, paid their tribute to a dairy built and 
equipped on the most modern plans, and run in every 
department by electricity. This was for several years 
one of the special objects of interest for visitors at 
the Park, partly because of the novelty of the me- 
chanical devices employed, and partly because the 
barnyard was surfaced with the same crushed marble 
as was used on the carriage drives, giving the whole 
place an air of aggressive cleanliness. 

"The Lenox residence," writes an old family 
friend, "was Mrs. Westinghouse's idea in every de- 
tail, and was the first building in the world, so far 
as I know, in which diffused electric lighting was 
attempted, the effect being to give the appearance 
of daylight, there being no shadows in any room. 
The lamps were arranged, throughout the house 
and on the piazzas, in a special moulding where the 
walls joined the ceilings. There were some fifteen 
hundred lamps in all, every one made especially for 
Mrs. Westinghouse, as were also the sockets, switches, 
and other appliances. When you reflect that this 
took place thirty years ago, you get an idea of the 
magnitude of the undertaking. I recall that even 
Mr. Westinghouse, in spite of his progressive ideas, 



A TRIO OF HOMES 269 

opposed his wife in this matter, but she carried out 
her plan, with a result much admired and quickly 
copied ; and as in 1888 electric lighting in private 
residences was in its infancy, and the few lamps 
were usually hung on the gas fixtures without even 
the concealment of the wires, some conception of 
the innovation is possible. This was brought home 
to me about fifteen years later, when one of the 
engineers from the Electric Works in Pittsburgh 
came to Erskine Park to report on the electric light 
plant. Just before starting back, he asked if he 
might go into the house and see the arrangement of 
the lights — a surprising request in view of the 
progress that had been made in interior electric 
lighting since this house was built. He explained 
that he was working in the shops when the ap- 
paratus was made, that everything was special 
because nothing like it had ever been made be- 
fore, and no one there could understand how it 
was to be used ; so he determined that if he ever 
got within a hundred miles of the place he would 
seethe results." 

The electric energy employed on the estate gener- 
ally was supplied from a power house situated in 
a retired nook at the north end of the estate. This 
was a substantial stone structure, containing a com- 
plete steam plant and dynamos for generating current. 
A rotary pump operated by an electric motor lifted 
from Laurel Lake the water needed for feeding the 
artificial lake, and on more than one occasion came 
to the rescue when the public water company at 
Lenox found itself crippled by some emergency. To 



270 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

this establishment, also, Lenox was indebted for the 
introduction of electric lighting into the village. 

The Westinghouse home in Washington was the 
fine brick mansion on the west side of Dupont Circle 
built by James G. Blaine when he became Secretary 
of State in the Garfield Cabinet, but unused by him, 
owing to the assassination of the President and his 
own withdrawal for a season from public life. It 
was leased for several years to Levi Z. Leiter, the 
retired merchant from Chicago, and then passed into 
possession of Mrs. Westinghouse. Here the family 
lived for a series of winters, taking a lively interest 
in the social and benevolent activities of the city, 
particularly while the McKinleys were in the White 
House. It was in this house that Mrs. Westinghouse 
gave a demonstration of her executive ability which 
attracted the widest attention. 

In the spring of 1899 the American Society of 
Mechanical Engineers was to hold a convention in 
Washington, and it was the desire of Mr. Westing- 
house, as one of the recognized pillars of the organiza- 
tion, to entertain his fellow members in some way. 
He accordingly issued invitations for a large recep- 
tion, which was to give them an opportunity to meet 
the chief dignitaries of the Government and the 
resident diplomatic corps ; but these were hardly 
out before he received a sudden summons abroad 
and was obliged to take passage on the next steamer. 
The situation was critical, for the signs all forecast 
an enormous attendance, and not a move had been 
made toward arranging a program or preparing the 
house. Mrs. Westinghouse stepped at once into the 



A TRIO OF HOMES 271 

breach. Perceiving that, capacious as her main floor 
was, it could not accommodate such an assemblage 
with comfort, she had a ballroom thrown out to cover 
the entire garden in the rear, practically doubling 
her space. It was built of wood, but elaborately 
decorated inside, with an expansive effect produced 
by a series of arches ; and so cleverly was its point 
of juncture with the main house concealed, that no 
one unfamiliar with the premises suspected that it 
was merely a temporary structure. 

Every detail of her plan was executed under her 
personal supervision, and at the head of the receiving 
line she welcomed more than three thousand guests 
who would not have assumed from her appearance 
or manner that such momentous undertakings were 
not with her an everyday experience. At her side 
stood Rear Admiral Melville, president of the society. 
Until that evening he had always cherished a rather 
unflattering impression of women as administrators, 
especially in emergencies calling for rapid thought 
and action on a broad scale ; but he confessed to his 
friends after this reception, the largest of the season 
in a city of large functions, that he was a convert to 
the opposite view. 

Westinghouse was eminently a domestic man. 
He had no taste for club life, but aimed to make his 
home his place of refreshment. Mrs. Westinghouse 
did all she could to encourage this idea. Her house- 
hold management was on so elastic a plan that when 
her husband would suddenly telephone her, as he 
often did, that he was going to bring two, six, or even 
ten friends home to dinner, nothing went awry. 



272 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

The conversation at their table never took a turn 
toward ill-natured or meddling gossip. It was light 
or grave according to who might be present ; but 
when he had his choice, Westinghouse liked to talk 
about the latest news from the technical world, 
or what would happen next in commerce or politics. 
Mrs. Westinghouse recognized that her first useful- 
ness as a partner of her husband lay in making his 
path as smooth as possible and enabling him to devote 
his best faculties to his work, secure from any petty 
worries that could be avoided. And she carried the 
same spirit into larger matters also, for, when his 
business troubles reached their crisis in 1907, she 
came forward at once with all the securities he had 
made over to her at various times as gifts, and insisted 
upon throwing them into the general pool to help 
relieve his embarrassment. 

In return, his devotion to her throughout their 
married life was chivalry itself. She could not ex- 
press a wish that he did not lay himself out to gratify, 
whether it seemed to him wise or whimsical. When 
they were separated he never allowed a night to pass 
without exchanging a few words with her by tele- 
phone or telegraph, usually about the happenings 
of the day. It made no difference whether they were 
on the same side of the ocean or not. He cabled her 
from London early one evening that Lord and Lady 
Kelvin and several other guests were coming to dine 
with him, and received her answer, extending her 
greetings to the company, before they sat down to 
table. His habit in this regard was much facilitated 
by the installation of private wires in every house 



A TRIO OF HOMES 273 

they occupied, connecting it with his distant business 
offices. When he was at home, these enabled him 
to communicate promptly and confidentially with 
his subordinates ; when he was away, they afforded 
a means of reaching his wife without the delays inci- 
dent to ordinary messages. At Erskine Park the 
long-distance telephone was brought even into the 
dressing room to which the golf players resorted 
after a game. 

Of buoyant temperament himself, Westinghouse 
had no use for pessimists, but wished about him only 
cheerful persons, with happy, hopeful faces and ways. 
He was fond of young people, and was rarely with- 
out one or more in his home. He liked especially to 
have his nieces about, and used to call them, because 
they were so merry, his "patent gigglers." All the 
good stories he heard during his absences he saved 
for the amusement of his wife, and often sent friends 
to her to hear them retold in her version. 



CHAPTER XX 

Insignia of Character 

Soon after the receivers were appointed in 1907, 
George Westinghouse one morning with a friend was 
on a train passing the Air Brake Works at Wilmer- 
ding, and the shops of the Electric and Manufacturing 
and Machine Companies at East Pittsburgh. He 
had been reading some newspaper comments on his 
misfortunes, in which admiration for his genius and 
character was tempered with charitable reflections 
on his lack of business judgment ; and there was a 
strong flavor of sarcasm in his voice and manner as 
he remarked : 

"They say I'm no financier." Then, after a 
moment's pause, and with a sweeping gesture which 
took in the whole industrial panorama: "So I 
suppose all those great works built themselves!" 

His newspaper critics had touched on the quick 
the most sensitive spot in his make-up, for, if he 
cherished one pet vanity, it was his self-confidence 
in directing his business on its fiscal as well as its 
mechanical side. His resourcefulness as an inventor 
was due to the wonderful scope of his imagination, 
but that faculty often stood him in bad stead in 
financial affairs, for few of the men on whom he must 
depend for pecuniary support were able to forecast 



INSIGNIA OF CHARACTER 275 

the future in his grand way, and in hours of stress 
when he most needed their aid they were sometimes 
least prepared to extend it. "Having solved to his 
own satisfaction the real inherent difficulties in any 
problem," says Calvert Townley, "his mind leaped 
forward over the intervening barriers to ultimate 
success, seeing, as if already accomplished, results 
which would require not only vigorous effort but 
considerable time. An invention that showed great 
promise in laboratory or shop was at once, in his 
mind, being successfully marketed throughout the 
world in quantities to which its worth would ul- 
timately entitle it. He resented the thought of the 
time that must intervene to create public demand 
and distribute the product. What he knew to be 
right, he expected others to admit sooner than they 
did." 

No manufacturing plant of his was ever built big 
enough to suit him ; he never inspected an installa- 
tion in one of his shops without beginning to calculate 
how soon it would be outgrown. It was a universal 
custom, when he entered business, to count "pro- 
spective earnings" as a legitimate part of the basis of 
capitalization in launching a corporate enterprise, 
and he simply followed the habit of his contempo- 
raries. Moreover, he insisted on living up to this 
idea even when things were going against him ; no 
matter how hard the times, dividends must be main- 
tained when earned, for the shareholders expected 
them ; if this involved a perilous strain on the present 
resources of the concern — well, it would all be made 
up later, so why borrow trouble ? And it is but fair 



276 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

to admit that, as a rule, his expectations were even- 
tually justified as to the main outcome, however 
injudicious it may have been at the time to trade so 
heavily on the future. Having fixed his purpose to 
achieve a certain result, he counted no outlay as 
extravagant if it would speed his progress to that 
goal. He once said to Mr. Townley : "I shall spend 
one hundred thousand dollars this year in developing 
my gas-producer." 

Few persons not intimately associated with him 
suspected the amounts he threw without compunc- 
tion into investigations and experiments which 
promised nothing directly in themselves, but would 
probably point the way for an advance in some un- 
tried direction. When his brother protested against 
his paying what seemed an exorbitant price for a 
device that he believed would help him in his work, 
he answered good-humoredly : "I appreciate your 
interest, Herman, but, all the same, I am going to 
do it ! " 

He was equally indifferent to the aesthetic appeal 
where it came into conflict with the practical. 
Frank S. Smith, a former member of his staff, says 
that in 1892 "there was under development in the 
Electric Company's Works a special grinding ap- 
paratus for use in connection with the manufacture 
of the 'stopper' lamp. During Mr. Westinghouse's 
absence, the head of one of the departments, an ex- 
cellent designer, had constructed a machine which 
did the work fairly well and followed a very graceful 
design. Mr. Westinghouse, on his return, dissected 
the whole machine and reconstructed it on a much 



INSIGNIA OF CHARACTER 277 

more effective but less artistic plan. On my assum- 
ing to remark that although the new apparatus 
worked very well, it did not look nearly so well as 
the original, he answered : "Smith, what works well 
looks well." 

His standards were free from any taint of mere 
personal profit. He cared for money only because 
it would give him power to do big things. "Had he 
coveted riches for their own sake," says Mr. Stillwell, 
"he could have passed his life making steel rails, 
cutting them off in thirty-foot lengths, and selling 
them for cash ; but this would have led nowhere." 
His interest in invention was practical rather than 
scientific. The announcement of a new discovery 
in mechanics or the solution of some tedious technical 
riddle went for little with him unless he could see 
how it was going to shorten a time or a distance, 
double a producing capacity, or promote the public 
safety ; then he was enthusiastic. 

Perhaps owing to his difficulty in gaining a hearing 
for his own first great invention, he always showed 
much consideration for budding inventors. As a 
result, the various Westinghouse companies have 
become the repository of many thousand purchased 
patents ; and for all that gave any promise, it is safe 
to say, generous returns were made. The story is 
told in Pittsburgh of the inventor of a rat-trap who 
was seeking for somebody to put it upon the market 
for him. A prominent citizen to whom he applied 
admitted that it was ingenious — too ingenious, 
indeed, for none but an uncommonly intelligent rat 
could possibly find the way into it. "He looked 



278 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

disappointed," said this gentleman, "but brightened 
when I added that his device contained one little 
feature which I thought might be worth his showing 
to George Westinghouse. Somewhat dubiously he 
went away. When we next met I inquired whether 
he had followed my advice. 'Oh, yes,' he answered ; 
'Mr. Westinghouse didn't care anything about the 
trap, but he was interested in the very feature you 
mentioned, because it might be of use in an invention 
he was developing. He bought my trap, patent 
rights and all. I would gladly have sold it to him 
for a hundred dollars. He offered me three thousand 
and I accepted it on the spot.' " 

In his business relations Westinghouse was con- 
spicuous for frankness and old-fashioned honesty. 
His unwillingness to advise the electrification of the 
Manhattan Elevated Railway in New York before 
he was convinced that the time was ripe for it was 
paralleled by the campaign he waged for years against 
combustible cars and excessive speed on electric 
roads either above or below ground, arguing that 
electricity might prove a more perilous agent than 
steam unless the precautions he advised were ob- 
served. Though a manufacturer of electrical ap- 
paratus and a contractor for its installation, he was 
ready to forego tempting pecuniary profits for the 
sake of dealing squarely with his customers and the 
public. 

It was the same way with the quality of his 
products. He would not consent to have anything 
go out of the Westinghouse works until it was as 
perfect as his men could make it. A prominent 



INSIGNIA OF CHARACTER 279 

mining engineer, speaking of this trait, remarked 
that he never bought any but Westinghouse ma- 
chinery, because it always did more than was claimed 
for it — a fifty horse-power machine invariably being 
good for seventy horse power, and other things in 
like proportion. In order to fortify himself in this 
practice, Westinghouse was regardless of time or 
trouble in bringing a piece of work to the desired 
degree of excellence. It took four years of expensive 
experiment to produce the four thousand horse-power 
locomotive for hauling trains through the Penn- 
sylvania tunnel under the Hudson. "If George 
Westinghouse said it would go, it would," declared 
a railroad president recently, discussing one of the 
latest mechanical ventures of the Machine Company. 

A purchaser of a lot of incandescent lamps came 
back to complain that they would not do the work 
for which he had bought them. He found his way 
to Westinghouse himself, who heard all he had to 
say, asked him several questions, and suggested a 
plan for setting the matter right. As soon as the 
visitor had gone, Westinghouse sent for the employee 
who had taken the order. 

"That man says he told you, when he bought 
those lamps, what use he was going to make of them. 
Is it true?" he demanded. 

"Yes, sir," was the hesitating answer. 

"And didn't you know they were unsuitable for 
his purpose?" 

"Why — I suppose I thought — but the order 
was large, and — " 

"That's not the way to build up a business," 



280 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

Westinghouse broke in sternly, and cut off further 
parley by dismissing the offender from his employ. 

On the other hand, he was very gentle in dealing 
with honest mistakes. "We do not discharge our 
men for little things," he explained to a friend who 
had shown surprise at his moderation. "If we were 
hanged for everything we did wrong, there would be 
few of us left." 

His odd mixture of concentration and diffusion, 
irregularity and method, used to baffle the compre- 
hension of observers who knew him only super- 
ficially. They could not reconcile his lack of a fixed 
routine of life with the precision of movement that 
reigned in his shops. In the Air Brake Works, where 
the raw material is carried from stage to stage on a 
sort of continuous railway, and the castings are borne 
away in like manner to the assembling departments, 
automatism in manufacture is brought to a point 
which is a standing marvel to visitors from the old 
world, accustomed to seeing human labor still pre- 
eminent. In the Electric and Manufacturing Works 
the cashier's office is so systematized that seventeen 
thousand mechanics can be paid their wages in fifteen 
minutes, not with cheques but in money ; and the 
clerical force of three thousand persons is paid by 
cheque with corresponding expedition. 

Westinghouse himself, according to Frank H. 
Taylor, had a faculty of mental distribution which 
enabled him to converse, write a note or cast up an 
account and dictate to a stenographer, all at the 
same time. This did not interfere with his ability 
to catch mental photographs of any happenings that 



INSIGNIA OF CHARACTER 281 

interested him, and to store negatives in so orderly 
a fashion in his memory as to be able later to bring 
out the right one whenever needed. Mr. Stillwell 
says that, having been interrupted midway in a 
conversation with some one and chancing to meet 
the same person six months afterward, he could re- 
sume their talk just about where it had dropped. 
The momentary riveting of his thought on whatever 
he was doing was shown in a hundred little ways. 
Mrs. Raymond Mallary says, for instance, that he 
always preferred to mix his own salad dressing at 
dinner, and that while he was thus engaged he would 
only look up with a nod to any one who addressed 
him, postponing a more elaborate response till the 
dressing was finished to his satisfaction. The Rev- 
erend Doctor Fisher of Pittsburgh describes his un- 
conscious trick, when an important thought suddenly 
occurred to him at table, of rubbing his chin in an 
absent manner, stretching himself back, and some- 
times penciling a little sketch on the damask cloth. 

In spite of his being so indefatigable a worker, he 
was content with a moderate amount of sleep in a 
night. During the day, even when he was apparently 
resting, his mind was awake. Doubtless the ex- 
penditure of so much energy with scant replenish- 
ment would have broken down almost any man of 
the ordinary physique and conventional habits, but 
Doctor Fisher, after watching its effects upon him 
from young manhood, ascribes his immunity to the 
fact that he was continually shifting his line of 
work. Whatever came next his hand would absorb 
his immediate attention : yesterday it may have been 



282 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

a novelty in rotary engines, today a refractory 
electric-lighting apparatus ; tomorrow it might be 
something which he believed would improve his air 
brake. Thus no subject with which his brain busied 
itself was allowed to go stale. Now and then, after 
several hours of uncommonly hard work, he would 
enter the office of one of his assistants and throw 
himself down upon a lounge, and every one knew 
his habits too well to disturb him with conversation 
or attention of any sort till he was ready to rise and 
leave or to volunteer a remark. 

When traveling, he would not kill time, like most 
of his fellow passengers, by reading, but would seat 
himself beside some one — it mattered not whether 
an acquaintance or a stranger — and in a few 
minutes would be shooting questions at him like 
bullets from a rapid-fire gun. He did not smoke, 
and drank no stimulant except a little wine with his 
dinner. Of amusements, his preference was for 
those which involved calculation and bodily exercise, 
like golf and bowling. He liked walking if he had 
a definite objective or congenial companionship, 
but cared nothing for it simply as an expedient for 
stretching his muscles. Fishing he enjoyed as a 
means of employing his hands while turning a ques- 
tion over in his mind. At Erskine Park, toward the 
close of a busy day, he would sometimes collect his 
tackle and start for the pond, calling out to Mrs. 
Westinghouse : "I'm off to get you a few fish for 
dinner!" Whether he caught enough for the whole 
table or only one or two, it was she who must be 
served before anybody else. Reading, aside from 



INSIGNIA OF CHARACTER 283 

the daily news and an occasional magazine article 
on a practical topic which had stirred his curiosity, 
was a rare indulgence until pretty late in life, when, 
apparently to his own surprise, he discovered a fancy 
for stories which hinged upon the unravelment of a 
mystery. During his early and middle life he was 
fond of the theater, and found particular pleasure 
in humorous plays that contained some special 
feature of excellence ; but in his later years, his 
attendance became very infrequent. 

Appreciative as he was of fun, uncleanness repelled 
him. "At a dinner of his agents and engineers in 
Pittsburgh at which he was not present," says 
Mr. Stillwell, "some one told an off-color story, and 
a member of the party who had had more wine than 
was good for him kept calling for another still less 
decorous. Macfarland, who was presiding, stood 
the nuisance for a while, and then announced to the 
company that no more stories of that character 
should be told while he was in the chair, as Mr. West- 
inghouse did not approve of such things. There was 
loud applause ; every one had such respect for ' the 
Old Man' that Macfarland carried his point without 
even a show of active opposition." 

Although he never took part in politics beyond 
allowing his name to be used once on the Republican 
ticket as a Presidential Elector, his interest in public 
affairs was strong. As he had repeatedly proved 
himself a good party man, many of his friends mar- 
veled at his outspoken admiration for Grover 
Cleveland. 

"Oh," he explained, when one of them questioned 



284 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

him about it, "Mr. Cleveland is an exception to all 
rules. He's a good enough citizen to be a Repub- 
lican!" 

William McKinley had a high regard for Westing- 
house's expert judgment and fairness of mind. Early 
in 1890, while chairman of the Ways and Means 
Committee of the House of Representatives, he sent 
Westinghouse a request for an interview on a certain 
day. As Westinghouse was going to Chicago on 
that day, he invited McKinley to join him at Pitts- 
burgh, and accompany him on the Glen Eyre, so 
that they could have their interview on their way 
westward. Thomas B. Kerr, who was of the party, 
says that McKinley wished to discuss the broad sub- 
ject of appliances for the protection of railway train- 
men, as this was a matter with which Congress would 
soon have to deal. "After a few minutes' general 
talk," adds Mr. Kerr, "Mr. Westinghouse began, 
and for an hour held us spellbound with a wonder- 
fully comprehensive and convincing exposition of 
the dangers attendant on railway service, their cause, 
their remedies, and the importance of remedying 
them, from the point of' view not only of human 
safety, but of economy and efficiency of railroad 
operation, citing statistics and facts which were 
startling, and expressing views and making recom- 
mendations that showed his wide knowledge and the 
maturity of his conclusions. Mr. McKinley left us 
at Canton, Ohio, saying that in many respects the 
subject had assumed a new, definite, and practical 
aspect in his mind ; and, watching with interest the 
subsequent course of legislation, I was not surprised 



INSIGNIA OF CHARACTER 285 

to see many of Mr. Westinghouse's suggestions 
written into the law." 

The strong friendship which developed later be- 
tween the inventor and the statesman lends particular 
interest to a prophecy made by Westinghouse in 
1894, two years before McKinley made his historic 
campaign against Bryan. "So powerful," said he, 
"will be the silver sentiment in 1896 that the Popu- 
lists may carry enough States to throw the election 
into the House. There is danger then that the 
Democrats and Populists will combine and give the 
Presidency to some Western Democrat who is com- 
mitted to free silver coinage ; further, a silver Con- 
gress may be elected in 1896. As soon as the people 
saw that fifty cents' worth of silver could be made 
into a dollar just as good for ordinary purposes as a 
gold dollar, they would assume as a logical sequence 
that the same thing could be done with a bit of paper. 
Fiat inflation would follow free silver as surely as day 
follows night ; and folly would follow folly till all 
confidence would be lost and the day of reckoning 
would have to come. I do not favor free silver, but 
it would be the smallest of the evils to be feared." 

To an intimation that he did not seem very en- 
thusiastic over popular government, he answered : 
"I do entertain a very high opinion of popular 
government. We must maintain it, too ; but you 
may search the annals of history and you will find 
that the policy of success and the conduct of all great 
enterprises are shaped by the few. Ambition, the 
desire for gain, the spirit of enterprise, induce rich 
men to engage in undertakings which benefit the 



286 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

world, but which the people would never undertake 
in a body." 

Love of country was with him a positive religion. 
In the center of the main lawn at Erskine Park stood, 
during his later years, the highest flagstaff anywhere 
thereabout, surmounted by two metallic circles hold- 
ing electric lamps which were a beacon at night 
visible from every point on the surrounding roads. 
The pole was raised to take part in a notable cele- 
bration of Independence Day in 1898. The war 
with Spain had reached a crucial stage, the air was 
vibrant with national ardor, and it occurred to 
Westinghouse that this would be a good time to 
invite the people of the countryside, including all the 
school children, to come together and glorify their 
heritage as American citizens. So he procured the 
largest and finest flag he could find, ordered a carload 
of refreshments, sent out his invitations, and awaited 
with glowing anticipations the arrival of the Fourth 
of July, when the flag was to be raised for the first 
time. 

But on the afternoon of the third a rumor gained 
circulation that an important battle had been fought 
off the south coast of Cuba. No particulars could 
be ascertained, even as to the general results, and for 
a while the joyful prospects for the morrow were 
balanced by forebodings. Westinghouse became 
more and more restless as the afternoon wore away, 
and, after drawing upon every source of information, 
he bethought him of the chief clerk of a hotel in 
Washington where he had often stayed, and which 
was famous as a headquarters for officers of the 



INSIGNIA OF CHARACTER 287 

Government and newspaper correspondents. To 
this man he telegraphed late in the evening, begging 
for any trustworthy information whatever about the 
reported battle. After midnight came the answer. 
The clerk, having contrived to get hold of an im- 
portant naval functionary, had received a "tip" 
that, though most of the details were still lacking, 
the American fleet had won a great victory off 
Santiago. 

Westinghouse could wait no longer. Seizing his 
flag, he ran out and fastened it to the halyards hang- 
ing from the pole, and hauled it up with his own 
hands, so that the dawn found it afloat and testifying 
to his enterprise as well as his patriotism. 

Among the idiosyncrasies of Westinghouse, none 
was more marked for many years than his hatred of 
personal publicity. He was glad to have his indus- 
tries exploited to the fullest extent, for in that direc- 
tion lay commercial success ; but so sedulously did 
he keep himself in the background that, long after 
he had become a celebrity in the outside world, he 
was practically unknown to the mass of his fellow 
citizens of Pittsburgh. This was because almost 
their only chance to see him was when he walked 
from the railway station to his office or from his office 
back to the station. He refused to let his portrait 
appear in the newspapers if there were any way of 
keeping it out. "When I want newspaper adver- 
tising," he would say, " I will order it and pay cash." 
Or again: "If my face becomes too familiar to the 
public, every bore or crazy schemer I meet in the 
street will insist on buttonholing me." 



288 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

These facts will explain how it happened that the 
best photograph ever made of him was a snapshot 
stolen when he was unaware of what was going on. 
It caught his fine profile as he bent over a drawing 
board in the attitude of absorption so characteristic 
of him, and derives a special charm from his mani- 
fest unconsciousness. This satisfactory result was 
brought about through the connivance of two mem- 
bers of his staff, one of whom concealed himself with 
a camera in a closet opening off the room of his 
confederate, whither it was known that "the Old 
Man" was coming that morning to study some draw- 
ings. The light from an adjoining window fell just 
where it was wanted, and the photographer, keeping 
the closet door a trifle ajar, watched till his chief was 
thoroughly engrossed, and then pressed the button. 
At first Westinghouse was inclined to be indignant 
when he learned what a trick had been played upon 
him, but, as usual, his irritation did not last long. 

Akin to his dislike of having his portrait published 
was his aversion to letting his name be used in the 
title of any enterprise not strictly in the line of his 
business. When, in 1 888-1 889 he removed his Air 
Brake Works from Pittsburgh to their present site, 
Wilmerding was open farm country, with no human 
habitations except two log houses visible in the 
neighborhood. Forecasting its possibilities as a 
manufacturing region, he purchased about five hun- 
dred acres of land, though obliged to include farms 
stretching from the bottoms which he could utilize 
back over the hillsides which he could not, for the 
owners were unwilling to sell him the desirable tracts 



INSIGNIA OF CHARACTER 289 

unless he could buy the undesirable as well. On his 
establishment of the nucleus of his industrial settle- 
ment, it seemed to some of his friends most appro- 
priate to christen it " Westinghouse", but he would 
not consent. Ten years later came a proposal to 
consolidate the boroughs of East Pittsburgh, Turtle 
Creek, and Wilmerding, and call the combination 
" Westinghouse" or "Westinghouse City", in recog- 
nition of the great changes for good which had been 
wrought in the whole region since he had begun to 
take an interest in it ; but the citizens who consulted 
him found him still objecting. Whatever his real 
motive, he playfully attributed his opposition to a 
dread of having his name brought into all sorts of 
unsavory associations. 

"Think how I should feel," he answered one man 
who was particularly persistent, "if I were to pick 
up my paper some morning and read an account of 
the arrest of John Smith of Westinghouse for bur- 
glary, or the commitment of William Jones of West- 
inghouse for habitual drunkenness ! No, I can't 
permit it." 

And again, when the apprentices in one of his shops 
organized a baseball nine and wished to call it the 
Westinghouse Club, he would not let them. "If 
you need money, boys," said he, "come to me, and 
I'll be glad to help you out; but you mustn't use 
my name." 



CHAPTER XXI 
"Last Scene of All" 

The Westinghouse family was remotely of Saxon 
stock, the original name being Westinghausen ; but 
one branch migrated to England, and from this 
sprang the American line. As far back as there is 
any record, the men have been of fine physique. 
George, with his exceptionally large head, his broad 
shoulders, and his stalwart frame more than six feet 
in height, was only typical of his ancestry, to whom 
he never failed to give full credit when any one re- 
marked upon his splendid vitality. Indeed, his 
general sense of soundness, and his belief that his 
temperate habits would ward off the disorders which 
beset most men late in life, betrayed him into occa- 
sional imprudences that caused his wife much anxiety, 
and not without reason. • 

With all his modesty of demeanor, he was a very 
proud man. Told once that some one had accused 
him of never knowing when he was beaten, he 
answered instantly: "Oh, yes, I should have known 
if I ever had been beaten, but I never have been !" 
The blow dealt him in 1910 by men on whose lifelong 
support he had confidently counted made no outward 
mark upon him ; he faced the world after it with the 
same intrepid look in his eyes and the same assurance 



"LAST SCENE OF ALL" 291 

of manner that it knew so well of old ; but he had 
suffered a wound of the spirit from which he never 
recovered. His reluctance to admit this, even to 
himself, caused him to conceal various minor ills which 
might have yielded to medical treatment if taken 
promptly in hand, but which, neglected, gradually 
crippled his resistant force when more threatening 
illness came. He would dismiss every inquiry with 
a casual, "Oh, it's only a cold; we all have colds 
sometimes," or, "I dare say I have eaten something 
that doesn't agree with me ; it's not worth another 
thought." Now and then a friend would remon- 
strate with him so seriously as to draw out some reply 
like: "I can't afford to be sick — you know that; 
there's too much depending on me." 

The first intimation he permitted to escape him 
that he realized his gradual weakening came one 
morning early in 191 1 when he was ascending the 
approach to the entrance of the Air Brake Works at 
Wilmerding. Pausing a moment, he said : "I must 
be getting old; it tires me to walk up these steps." 
During a visit to Lenox the same year, he was at- 
tacked in the night with a fit of coughing which lasted 
two hours ; not till long afterward, however, did he 
confess to any one that he had experienced, in the 
midst of the paroxysm, a sensation as if his heart had 
been torn loose. In the summer of 191 3, while his 
family were in the country, he began coughing again 
at the dinner table, so violently that the servants 
were frightened, and one of them hastened to sum- 
mon Doctor William A. Stewart, his Pittsburgh 
physician. Before the doctor arrived the spasm 



292 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

had so far subsided that the patient was ready to 
turn the whole matter aside with a witticism. But 
Stewart's trained eye took in more than appeared 
on the surface, and in response to repeated requests 
for permission to make a thorough physical examina- 
tion, Westinghouse finally yielded a very grudging 
consent. It was the first time he had undergone 
anything of the sort since, as a youth, he enlisted in 
the army, and it brought to light the fact that he 
had a dilated heart and other organic weaknesses 
which meant that his life-lease was running out. 
In view of these discoveries he consented to drop 
his current work for a month and try to amuse him- 
self at Erskine Park. Meanwhile a business asso- 
ciate who had long been familiar with his affairs and 
felt on terms that would warrant such a liberty, urged 
him to make a will, but for some time he could not 
be induced to consider the idea with any patience. 
It required another warning to bring him to the 
point. 

Few of his immediate family were left to provide 
for. His father had died in 1890, the same strong- 
willed, conservative, characterful man to the last. 
In spite of their early disagreements as to the value 
of the air brake invention, and certain old-fashioned 
strictures of the father on what he regarded as the 
extravagances of the son, they had always remained 
the warmest of friends. The mother, who after 
middle life had become a semi-invalid, had in her 
widowhood been a member of her son's household 
till her death in 1895. The sisters were all gone. 
Of the brothers, only the youngest remained, Jay 



"LAST SCENE OF ALL" 293 

and John having died within a few months of their 
father. 

Notwithstanding the business ordeal through which 
he had passed but a few years before, Westinghouse 
still retained a considerable estate, the bulk of which 
his will divided between his wife, his son, and his 
brother Henry Herman in various proportions. He 
remembered generously, also, some of his faithful 
subordinates who had stood in close relations with 
him, and the older family servants, and canceled 
all debts owing him by other persons. Henry Her- 
man Westinghouse, Charles A. Terry, his old friend 
and counsel, and Walter D. Uptegraff, who had for 
many years acted as his secretary and financial 
adviser, he made his executors, without bonds, and 
with practically unlimited discretion in the handling 
of the property. He left no outside benefactions, 
a fact sufficiently explained by his well-understood 
philosophy of giving. When Thomas B. Kerr once 
asked his aid for a mission church which was doing 
good work among the iron-mill hands in the outskirts 
of Pittsburgh, he contributed the sum needed, but 
only on condition that his identity should not be 
divulged. "Then," Mr. Kerr related, "he turned 
to me and said : ' I have never permitted my name 
to be associated with any such subscription list. I 
am convinced from observation and experience that 
the greater part of the money which is given for 
benevolence is a detriment rather than a help, for 
it tends to pauperize the recipient by destroying his 
honest pride of independence, and adds to the burden 
of society by the development of a class of people 



294 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

who are willing to accept charity rather than to 
exercise their own ability. I think, as a rule, a dollar 
given to a man does him ten dollars' worth of harm, 
while a dollar honestly earned by his own efforts does 
him ten dollars' worth of good ; so my ambition is 
to give as many persons as possible an opportunity 
to earn money by their own efforts, and this has been 
the reason why I have tried to build up corporations 
which are large employers of labor, and to pay living 
wages, larger even than other manufacturers pay, 
or than the open labor market necessitates.' 

" It is a matter of history, of course, how Mr. West- 
inghouse carried out this idea. Thereafter his ap- 
parent ambition to build up large concerns had a 
different aspect in my eyes, as I understood the 
ethical impulse underlying it. While he disclaimed 
belief in the efficacy of benevolent giving, and shrank 
from acknowledgment of his kindness, those of us 
who were closely connected with him knew of many 
instances where he was supporting whole families 
and doing other deeds of helpfulness in an unosten- 
tatious way. Mrs. Westinghouse was very sym- 
pathetic and loved to relieve distress, and Mr. West- 
inghouse made her a regular allowance for the 
gratification of her desires in this respect. The 
amount was stated to me, and it was large." 

The play spell at Lenox, though extended to three 
times its proposed length, did not accomplish what 
some of the more optimistic friends of the family, 
regardless of the doctor's dictum, had been hoping 
it would. When Westinghouse returned to his office, 
his lieutenants were shocked at the change for the 



"LAST SCENE OF ALL" 295 

worse that had come over his appearance. Most of 
the color had left his face; his manner, once so 
brisk, had become languid ; and he would doze over 
his work or during any brief lapse in a conversation. 
He walked little, and then with the slow step of a 
tired man. To the doctor, who at his instance had 
made a second physical examination, he related an 
incident of his country sojourn, of which a rumor had 
reached Pittsburgh, but the full significance of which 
had not been appreciated. It appeared that he had 
gone one morning to the pond for an hour's fishing, 
and sought his rowboat at the usual mooring, un- 
aware that it had been taken away for repairs and 
another left in its place. The substitute was keelless, 
and, as he stepped into it, turned over, throwing 
him into the pond. Fortunately he was where the 
water was only chin-deep, and the mooring was close 
to a bridge, upon which he laid hold as an aid in 
clambering out ; but the bank was steep just there, 
his weight was considerably more than two hundred 
pounds, and the strain which this exertion put upon 
his heart was excessive. 

Two of his nieces were playing tennis a short dis- 
tance away, and in his desire to escape their notice 
he took a roundabout route to the house in his wet 
clothes. That night he went to bed with a severe 
cold that lingered for weeks, and caused fits of cough- 
ing which harassed him so that he dreaded to go to 
sleep, lest he should be seized with a paroxysm and 
strangle before he could summon assistance. To 
add to his distress, he felt that it was important to 
keep his wife in ignorance of his condition, her own 



296 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

being such that any violent shock was liable to cause 
her death. 

Once more Doctor Stewart protested against his 
continuing his work, but he insisted that he must 
settle the affairs of the Security Investment Company 
and sever his direct connection with it. As he ex- 
plained that this might make all the difference be- 
tween adequate and inadequate provision for his 
creditors and family after he was gone, the doctor 
consented. That business finished, Westinghouse 
agreed to leave Pittsburgh for a while if the doctor 
would accompany him, and in November, 19 13, 
they went together to Erskine Park. Stewart's 
companionship on the journey and during their stay 
in Lenox seemed to revive a good deal of the old 
sprightliness in Westinghouse, who, except when 
his illness took on an acute phase, told stories and 
jested like his former self. The doctor slept in 
a chamber adjoining his, and frequently looked 
in upon him during the night, almost always 
finding him quiet but wide awake ; the sleep- 
lessness which had grown out of his apprehen- 
sions of some months before seemed now to have 
become a settled habit. 

The moods of the patient increased to fitfulness 
as his strength slipped away. He lost his appetite 
for the food prescribed for him, and, in his long 
despondent periods, would beg the doctor to let him 
die unless he could be allowed to resume work. At 
other times he would take a cheerful view of what 
he now realized was the inevitable end of his trial, 
even getting back a little of his whimsical humor. 



"LAST SCENE OF ALL" 297 

One nourishing compound which it was hard work 
at the outset to lure him into swallowing he presently 
came to relish. Its chief ingredient was a raw egg, 
and when he was ready for a glass of it he would give 
the signal by asking: "Doctor, isn't it time for me 
to cackle?" 

After Christmas, he hoped to be able to go to 
his Washington home, which he had extensively 
repaired. With this plan in view the first stage 
of the journey was made to New York, but there 
the party took a suite in the Hotel Langham for 
the rest of the winter, as it seemed unwise to pro- 
ceed further for the present. 

About the beginning of March matters seemed to 
be temporarily at a standstill, but soon afterward 
he was taken with a sinking turn and fell into a 
mental stupor. This remained his condition until 
the twelfth, when, in the midst of a crisp, bright, 
sunny morning, the end came, and so peacefully 
that the friends gathered about him were scarcely 
conscious of his passing. He was in a wheeled re- 
clining chair, as if he were merely taking a rest 
between activities. It was the way he would have 
preferred to die had he been permitted to arrange 
the conditions himself, surrounded with none of the 
accessories we associate with death. 

Two days later, in the presence of an assemblage 
which filled the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, 
the funeral services were held, under the conduct of 
the pastor, the Reverend Doctor J. H. Jowett, as- 
sisted by the Reverend Doctor Samuel J. Fisher of 
Pittsburgh. At Woodlawn Cemetery, where the 



298 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

burial was private, Doctor Fisher conducted the serv- 
ices. For these few hours all work was suspended in 
the Westinghouse shops and offices in this country and 
in Europe, as a tribute of respect to the fallen chief. 
Besides large delegations from the leading scientific 
and engineering societies of America, more than fifty 
members of the Westinghouse Air Brake Veterans' 
Association were present ; some of these men had 
worked for the Air Brake Company for forty years, 
and all had been members of its force in the first shop 
it occupied in Pittsburgh. The active pallbearers 
were eight old employees : Christopher Horrocks, 
Edward B. Cushing, Samuel D. Sleeth, William J. 
Hague, Samuel McClain, Thomas Campbell, 
J. Hunter Sleeth, and J. B. Brooks. The honorary 
pallbearers were men of distinction in business and 
public life, including Charles Francis Adams, Senator 
George T. Oliver, Rear-Admiral Robert E. Peary, 
Samuel Rea, and Frederick D. Underwood, besides 
a number of old friends and managers of the various 
Westinghouse companies. 

In June Mrs. Westinghouse followed her husband, 
as the result of a third stroke of paralysis, the first 
of which had occurred in 1912. She left no will, her 
estate passing to her son and sole heir, George West- 
inghouse, who had married in 1909 Violet, daughter 
of Sir Thomas Brocklebank of Irton Hall, Cumber- 
land, England, and had two children, George Thomas 
and Aubrey Harold Westinghouse. On December 15, 
191 5, the remains of the eminent inventor and his 
wife were removed to the Arlington National Ceme- 
tery, opposite Washington, D. C, where a simple 



"LAST SCENE OF ALL" 299 

but dignified marble monument marks their grave, 
bearing this inscription : 



1846 — George Westinghotjse — 1914 

Acting Third Assistant Engineer, U. S. Navy, 1864-1865 

His Wife 

1842 — Marguerite Ebskine Walker — 1914 



Here we take leave of one who was probably the 
most remarkable industrial leader and prophet this 
country has ever produced. Everything to which 
he addressed his energies brought forth some result 
for the advancement of civilization ; even those 
experiments which ended in apparent failure con- 
tributed in their way, either as warning signals to 
later comers or as incentives to fresh efforts which 
did succeed. It was characteristic of the man that 
after the hand of death had been laid upon him, and 
he who had once been a model of virile strength could 
no longer move about at will, he was constantly 
busy with pad and pencil. The very shortcomings 
of the wheel-chair in which he was doomed to pass 
so many weary days kept his mind active, because 
he read in them a further opportunity to be useful ; 
and the special task he set himself was to design a 
model invalid chair in which the patient could be 
wheeled or rocked, raised or lowered, or shifted into 
any position which would make him more com- 
fortable — all by an electric mechanism under his 
own control. 



300 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 

Doctor Fisher in his funeral sermon quoted these 
lines : 

"I know the night is near at hand ; 
The mist lies low on sea and bay ; 
The autumn leaves go drifting by ; 
But I have had the day." 

George Westinghouse had had the day. * He had 
filled every hour of it with achievement, and the sun 
when it set saw him still at work. 



INDEX 



Accidents, evidence of, against 
electricity, 96 

Acheson, U. S. circuit judge, 167 

Adams, Charles Francis, 298 

Adams, Edward D., 173 

Air, first suggestion of use of com- 
pressed, for brake, 55 

Atkins, Edwin F., 217 

Automatic brake, 87, 92 

Automobile, compressed-air springs 
in, 221 

Baggaley, Ralph, 59, 62, 73, 246 

Baring Brothers' failure, 157 

Belfield, Reginald, 135 

Belmont, August, 202 

Blaine, James G., 270 

Brake, improving the speed of the, 

49 ; the old-fashioned hand, 47 
British experiments, 84 ; triumph of 

American over, 191 
Brocklebank, Sir Thomas, 298 
Brooks, J. B., 298 
Brown, Harold P., 145, 153 
Burlington, Iowa, brake testing at, 

92-98 ; perfection of brake at, 

95-98 

Caldwell, John, 73, 126 

Campbell, Thomas, 298 

Canal, electric motive power for 

Erie, 176 
Card, W. W., 66 
Cassatt, Andrew J., 65, 202 
Cataract Commission Company, 173 
Central Bridge, N. Y., 1 
Clark's chain brakes, 86 
Cleveland, Grover, 200, 283 
Cockran, William Bourke, 154 
Colburn, Zerah, 77 
Columbian Exposition of 1893, 162 ; 

size of contract for lighting, 169 



Cornell, ex-Governor Alonzo B., 

147 
Cravath, Paul D., 201 
Current, alternating vs. continuous 

electric, 132 
Curtis, Leonard E., 166 
Curtis, Newton M., 154 
Cushing, Edward B., 298 

Dalzell, John, 123 
Dewing, Arthur S., 217 
Dooley, C. R., 251 
Dredge, J., 77 ; a skeptical British 
editor, 82 

Edison, Thomas A., 148, 150, 151, 

165 

Edison Medal, awarded Westing- 
house, 197 

Electric current, alternating, making 
newspaper sensation, 144; con- 
troversy over, 151 ; alternating 
triumphant among scientists in 
New York, 148 

Electric death penalty, 152 

Electric wires underground, advo- 
cated, 147 

Engines, steam turbine, 183 

Equitable Life Assurance Society, 
198 

Evershed, Thomas, 172 

Experiments in switching and sig- 
naling, 102 

Ferrari, Electrician, 141 

Fish, Frederick P., 166 

Fisher, Rev. Dr. Samuel J., 281, 

297 
Flower, Gov. Roswell P., 176 
Forbes, George, 174 
Frick, Henry C, 202 



301 



302 



INDEX 



Gas, Natural, 106; explosion of, 
at Solitude, 109 ; great force of, 
112; in Pittsburgh industries, 
114; perils of using, 115; im- 
provements in piping, 116; Pitts- 
burgh's problem of, 1 19 ; accident 
at Solitude, 121 ; corporation for 
rule of, 125 ; for industrial pur- 
poses, 128 

Gaulard, Lucien, 135 

Gerry, Elbridge T., 152 

Gibbs, John Dixon, 135 

Gillespie, T. A., 126, 161 

Gompers, Samuel, 253 

Grant, Hugh J., 150 

Hague, William J., 298 

Herr, H. T., 187, 208 

Hewitt, Abram S., 145 

Hickok, President Laurens Perseus, 

39 
Higgins, Governor, 198 
Hill, Gov. David B., 152 
Hill, James J., 202 
Horrocks, Christopher, 246, 298 
Hughes, Charles E., 198 
Humbert I, King of Italy, 193 
Hyde, Henry B., 198 

Insurance, Life, scandal, 198 
International Niagara Commission, 

173 
International Railway Congress, 194 

Jewett, Thomas L., 67 
Jowett, Rev. Dr. J. H., 297 

Kapteyn, Albert, 267 

Kelvin, Lord, 174 

Kemmler, William, the Murderer, 

153 
Kerr, Thomas B., 166, 284, 293 
Knickerbocker Trust Co., New York, 

failure of, 208 

Lamp, the Sawyer-Man, 162, 167 ; 

the Stopper, 156, 164, 165 
Lange, Engineer, 140 
Leiter, Levi Z., 270 
Leopold II, King of Belgium, 193 



Liebaw, Richard, 221 
Littell's Living Age, 52 
Locksteadt, Chas. F., 163 
London, electric lighting of, 188 
London Engineering, 77, 135 
Lowrey, Grosvenor P., 165 

Macalpine, John H, 185 
McClain, Samuel, 298 
MacDonald, Dr. Carlos F., 155 
Macfarland, 283 
McKinley, William, 284 ; family in 

White House, 270 
Mallary, Mrs. Raymond, 281 
Mascart, Professor E., 174 
Master Car Builders' Association, 92 
Mather, Robert, 216 
Maw, W. H., 77 
Melville, Rear-Admiral George W., 

185, 271 
Meter, an electric current, 140 
Miller, John F., 248 
Motor, Tesla electric, 141 

New York, the current struggle in, 

143 

Niagara, from, to the Navy, 171 ; 
River power developed, 170; 
International, Commission, 173 ; 
present power plants, 177 

O'Brien, Judge Morgan J., 200 
Oliver, Senator George T., 298 
Osborne, Loyall A., 135 

•Pantaleoni, Guido, 134, 138 
Parsons, Charles Algernon, 183 
Peary, Rear-Admiral Robert E., 298 
Philadelphia Company, 124, 197 
Pitcairn, Robert, 64, 126 
Pittsburgh, what natural gas did for, 

119 
Pope, Franklin L., 138 
Post, George A., 194 

Railway, electric button system, 
180; International Congress, 194 ; 
Manhattan Elevated, system, 181 

Railways, third rail system on 
Street, 182 

Ratcliffe, William, 20, 36 



INDEX 



303 



Rea, Samuel, 298 
Reed, Judge J. H., 207 
Rodman, Hugh, 245 
Rotary engine idea, 41 
Rowland, Prof. Henry A., 174 
Ryan, Thomas Fortune, 199 

Sage, Russell, 181 

Schiff, Jacob H., 202 

Schmid, Albert, 134 

Scott, Charles F., 135 

Scott, Rev. Walter, 37 

Sellers, Dr. Coleman, 173 

Shallenberger, Oliver B., 134, 140 

Sherman, Roger M., 154 

Signalling, experiments in, 102 

Sleeth, J. Hunter, 298 

Sleeth, Samuel D., 298 

Slideometer device, 94 

Smith, Frank S., 276 

"Solitude", estate at Homewood, 74 

Stanley, William, 131 

Stewart, James C, 190 

Stewart, John A., 202 

Stewart, Lorenzo, 32 

Stewart, Dr. William A., 284 

Still well, Lewis B., 135, 174, 281, 283 

Straight-air brakes, 88 

Switching, experiments in, 102 

Tate, Daniel, 68 
Taylor, Frank H., 243, 280 
Terry, Charles A., 165, 293 
Tesla, Nikola, 134, 139, 244 
Thomson, Sir William, 174 
Towne, Sup't C. B. & Q. R.R., 50 
Townley, Calvert, 275 
Turretini, Col. Theodore, 174 
Twombley, Hamilton McK., 173 

Underwood, Frederick D., 298 
Union Switch & Signal Company, 132 
Unwin, Prof. William Cawthorne, 174 
Uptegraff, Walter D., 207, 293 

Vacuum Brakes, 87, 92 

Van der Weyde, Dr. P. H., 147 

Wells, Prof. William, 38 
Westinghouse Electric Company or- 
ganization, 139 



Westinghouse, George, personal char- 
acteristics, 1 ; birthplace at Cen- 
tral Bridge, N. Y., 1 ; father and 
mother, 2, 13, 17, 21, 23, 25, 36, 
61, 71, 292; circumstances of his 
birth, 5 ; childhood, 10 ; removal 
to Schenectady, 13 ; mechanical 
tastes, 16; first earnings, 17; 
ingenuity, 18, 20; education, 19; 
school and teachers, 22 ; desire to 
enter the army, 23, 30; attempt 
to run away, 25 ; recruiting serv- 
ices, 32 ; experience as a soldier, 
33 ; trying the Navy, 35 ; enter- 
ing Union College, 37 ; no taste 
for languages, 38 ; a man's wages, 
40 ; returning to mechanical pur- 
suits, 40; invents car replacer, 
42 ; making cast steel railway 
frogs, 42 ; meeting with his 
future wife, 45 ; marriage, 46 ; 
Mont Cenis tunnel experiments, 
54; breaking with his partners, 
56 ; moving to Pittsburgh, 58 ; 
early discouragements, 62 ; first 
real test of the air brake, 69 ; 
patenting the air brake, 72 ; air 
brake company first organized, 
73 ; goes to England, 74, 76 ; 
early progress in Europe, 90; 
electrical appliances with air 
brakes, 93 ; triumphal train tour 
of the country, 99 ; Master Car 
Builders' Association report, 100 ; 
interested in natural gas, 106; 
defending the alternating current, 
149 ; magazine controversy with 
Thomas A. Edison, 150; con- 
troversy over electric death 
penalty, 153 ; effective person- 
ality, 1 56 ; needing a half million 
dollars, 158; criticized by his 
creditors, 159; invades money 
circles in New York, 160 ; trusted 
by employees and contractor, 
161 ; detective instinct, 166 ; 
highly complimented by the Co- 
lumbian Exposition, 170; refuses 
a first offer for advice on Niagara, 
174; experiments with electric 



304 



INDEX 



power on Erie Canal, 176 ; theories 
regarding a future gas engine, 
180; electrifying street railways, 
180; relations with Manhattan 
Elevated Railway, 181 ; on the 
"third rail" system, 182; steam 
turbine researches, 183 ; under- 
taking the electric lighting of 
London, 188 ; contracting with 
James C. Stewart, 190 ; scholastic 
degrees and honors for, 193 ; 
Grashof medal, 193 ; John Fritz 
medal, 194 ; address before Inter- 
national Railway Congress, 194; 
complimented by N. Y. Life, 196 ; 
as trustee for the Equitable Life 
Assurance Co., 201 ; second 
financial ordeal, 204; Electric 
& Manufacturing Company most 
seriously involved, 206 ; omitting 
annual meeting of his great 
company, 208 ; calmness under 
great distress, 210; collapse as a 
financier, 217; and the automobile 
industry, 219; inventing his air 
spring, 222 ; as a public speaker, 
223 ; on the Trust question, 224 ; 
on industrial standardization, 226 ; 
on the ultimate electrification of 
all railways, 228 ; prophecies of 
industrial future of South, 229 ; 
on the disciplinary policy of 
Germany, 231 ; admired by his 
employees, 232 ; stories about, 
and his employees, 235 ; benevo- 
lence of, 240 ; habits of working, 
241 ; proposed Alaskan wheat 
experiment, 242 ; beginning of 
his air-brake factory, 246 ; 
Thanksgiving dinner custom, 247 ; 
Saturday half -holiday custom, 
247 ; workmen's pension system, 
248 ; workmen's relief depart- 
ment, 248 ; educational work 
among young employees, 250 ; 
care for the girls in his employ, 
251 ; on the labor union ques- 
tion, 253 ; benevolence to his 
workmen, 255 ; hatred of treach- 
ery, 258 ; and his trio of homes, 



259 ; private car, the Glen Eyre, 
259 ; homes at Lenox, Mass., 
Pittsburgh, Pa., and Washington, 
D. C, 259 ; Lenox estate and the 
electric apparatus for moving 
water, 269 ; home on Dupont 
Circle, Washington, 270; do- 
mestic traits, 271 ; sensitiveness 
to criticism of his financial failure, 
274 ; positiveness, 276 ; generosity 
to inventors, 277 ; and the rat- 
trap man, 277 ; honesty in busi- 
ness, 278 ; fishing habits, 282 ; 
interest in public affairs, 283 ; 
admiration for Cleveland, 284 ; 
relations with McKinley, 284 ; 
on popular government, 285 ; love 
of country, 286; dislike of news- 
paper portraits, 287 ; best photo- 
graph ever taken, 288 ; hatred of 
using his name for advertising, 
289; "last scene of all", 290; 
heavy colds, 291 ; will, 293 ; 
breakdown in health, 294; acci- 
dent in keelless boat, 295 ; nieces 
playing tennis, 295 ; last illness, 
296 ; death, 297 ; funeral, 297 ; 
inscription on tombstone, 299 ; 
industrious to the last, 299 

Westinghouse, George, Jr., 106, 267 ; 
marriage of, 298 ; Mrs. George, Jr., 
298 ; children, 298 

Westinghouse, Henry Herman, 13, 
126, 131, 293 

Westinghouse, Jay, 14 

Westinghouse, John, 14, 23, 29, 30, 
34, 36, 293 

Westinghouse Machine Company, 131 

Westinghouse, Marguerite Erskine 
Walker, 46, 106, 134 ; and her 
"Solitude" estate, 260; helping 
to lay out her Lenox estate, 263 ; 
as a farmer, 267 ; as the author 
of diffused electric lighting, 268 ; 
handling reception to American 
Society of Mechanical Engineers, 
270; benevolence, 294 

Westinghouse Office Building, 128 

Whitcomb, G. D., 73 

Williams, Edward H., 65, 73 




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